King Elessar of the Caribbean
by The Rush
Summary: This is a LotR-PotC x-over. When Aragorn goes to find some herbs to help his ailing son, he discovers something which will turn his world topsy-turvy. COMPLETE!
1. Part 1: Aragorn's Find

Hello to all my readers. It's BlackKobra again. I figured I'd write this story, just 'cause it seemed like an interesting idea when I thought of it. It's only my second story, and my first crossover at that, so it might be a little bizarre. Please review when you're finished, because I might need a little help.  
  
Disclaimer: I do not own any characters from Pirates of the Caribbean, or from the Lord of the Rings. I wish I owned Elizabeth though *whistles*.  
  
Chapter 1: Aragorn's Find  
  
Aragorn walked down the white stone street of Minas Tirith, his shining sollerets reflecting the sun's glare. On his back he wore an Elven cloak of Lothlorién, one he had received from Lady Galadriel and Lord Celeborn. And, in his belt was Andúril, the Sword of Isildur reforged. It glinted as he ventured down the cobblestone road, amid the cries of "Long live King Elessar!"  
  
He truly was the magnificent King of Gondor.  
  
As he passed a great stone fountain and down a short flight of steps, he was approached by Queen Arwen, whom he embraced.  
  
"Good morning, Arwen," said Aragorn, and kissed her.  
  
"Aragorn, you have made this city proud," she replied, and smiled. "Its essence will never die, as long as you and your kin are its rulers."  
  
Aragorn grinned. "Speaking of my kin, how is our son?"  
  
"That is what I have come to speak to you of," said Arwen grimly, the smile fading from her beautiful face. "Eldarion is ill."  
  
The smile, too faded from Aragorn's face.  
  
"What has happened?" said Aragorn seriously.  
  
"I think he has been bitten," said Arwen. "Perhaps by a Warg?"  
  
"If he were attacked by a Warg, he would be long dead," said Aragorn with a hollow laugh.  
  
"Well, he had his short sword with him," Arwen pointed out. "In any case, whatever has bitten him has made him ill. Is there anything you know of which will save him?"  
  
"Athelas, perhaps," mused Aragorn. "I know where to find some; I could fetch a little now."  
  
"Then go and get some, and be quick!" said Arwen, and Aragorn hurried off.  
  
He left the borders of the city, and found his way into a small meadow between two steep hills. There was a young sapling standing near the middle, with a small green shrub growing at its base, with white flowers. Athelas. He whipped out his knife and bent down next to the tree. He cut a branch of the shrub and stowed it in his breast pocket. He was about to return to the city, when something caught his eye.  
  
A small glint of gold was shining from beneath the trimmed boughs of the Athelas shrub. Aragorn took hold of it and pulled it out. It appeared to be a very dusty gold coin, with an eerie sort of skull in the middle, and inscriptions around the outside. It seemed very seductive.  
  
He reached out his finger and touched the skull. Suddenly, he began to feel strange. His whole body began to tingle, his vision turned a gold-ish colour, and he began to glow. And at the same time, his hands, where he was holding the coin, began to burn. He tried to let go of the gold, but he couldn't move his fingers. He couldn't move any part of his body.  
  
He was frozen to the spot. His vision became clouded with white (well - gold, from his point of view) until he could not see anything. Then his vision came back to him, but all colours had returned to normal. Aragorn was glad that was over.  
  
But it wasn't over, he soon found out. He looked around him. He was no longer in a pleasant little meadow, but in a small glade of palm trees. The air around him was very hot and muggy, and he began to sweat uncomfortably.  
  
Aragorn unclipped his brooch and removed his cloak from his back, and placed it beneath a bush. He then walked through an opening in the trees, the only one he could fit through, and out onto a sandy beach. The sand was very white, and the sea beside it was sapphire blue. A large battlement was standing at the end of the beach, on a cliff which fell into the water. It was very strange. Surely no place in Middle-earth was like this?  
  
He walked down the beach, amid suspicious stares from people along the water's edge. Their continual ogling was getting irritating by the time Aragorn was half-way down the beach. He drew Andúril and looked at the people around him, who quickly returned to what they had been doing. He placed the sword back in its sheath and continued walking toward the garrison of the wall. It was open.  
  
He walked through and into a very peculiar town square, where people were hurrying about their business, and still staring at him. He drew Andúril again. A woman screamed and ran, another woman ushered three small children into a doorway, and two tough-looking men brandished their fists. Aragorn raised an eyebrow as though to say 'Bring it on,' and waved Andúril in an ornate pattern before striking a battle pose. The men, now looking very worried, forgot all dignity and tore away shouting "Madman! Madman in the town square!"  
  
Aragorn looked around him. There was no one left. Very odd behaviour. He wandered around the town square, looking for some sign of where he was. He went back into the middle of the garrison, and looked at a sign he had neglected before.  
  
It read: 'Welcome to Port Royal.'  
  
Well, that's all for now. Sorry it's so short. Can anyone guess what the coin Aragorn found was (duh)? Please review, and I'll try and update the story A.S.A.P.! 


	2. Aragorn Meets Turner

Hullo, there. Here's Chapter 2. I know you're all dying for Jack, Will, or Elizabeth to show up, so I'll get right to the point. Please R&R!  
  
Here we go.  
  
Aragorn was very puzzled.  
  
'Port Royal?" he thought, confusedly. He was sure there was no where in Middle Earth called Port Royal.it was a very odd name too.  
  
He went back into the town square and dipped his bottle into the fountain. He took a deep swig on it and re-corked it. Then he looked around him. A couple of heads had poked around the corner of an alleyway, but disappeared as soon as Aragorn's eyes rested on them.  
  
Aragorn shook his head. He made for the door of a fashionable- looking inn, labeled 'The Eagle's Nest' in gold lettering, ascended the two white stone steps before the oak door, and was about to open it, when a voice rang out behind him.  
  
"Oi! You!"  
  
Aragorn span around to see a young man, running up to him, brandishing a very long, thin sword in his right hand, and carrying a hammer in his left. He looked to be about twenty. He had dark, untidy hair which crept down the back of his neck to his shoulders. He had a neat moustache to match the colour of his hair. He was wearing a light brown vest over top of a white shirt. His face bore an uncanny resemblance to Legolas'.  
  
Aragorn drew Anduríl, next to which the young man's sword looked like a joke.  
  
"You!" repeated the man, as though Aragorn had not heard him. Aragorn descended the white steps to come face-to-face with the man. He had striking amber eyes.  
  
"Yes?" said Aragorn impatiently.  
  
"What are you doing?" said the man, puffing himself up to look important. He looked more like a scruff-bag to Aragorn than someone important.  
  
"I am attempting to enter this inn," said Aragorn, nodding his head backwards toward The Eagle's Nest door. "Is that a crime?"  
  
"That is not what I was referring to," said the man. "I am referring to you barging in here with your sword and attacking the commoners."  
  
Aragorn observed the man.  
  
"'The commoners' eh?" said Aragorn. "You look to be in no position to be talking like that. Look at you - you're not nobility. You're filthy. Aha! a blacksmith," he added, noting his hammer.  
  
The young man bounced on the balls of his heels, looking offended.  
  
"I imagine I am at least more important than you; look at your hair," said the man tersely in one breath. "It looks like it has never seen a blade in its life. And your clothes.very peculiar."  
  
The man, apparently pleased with himself, puffed himself up even more and uselessly attempted to flatten his hair.  
  
Suddenly, Aragorn felt guilty. He did not know why, but he just felt guilty about insulting the man.  
  
"Look, I'm sorry," said Aragorn. "I'm just confused. I have no idea where I am. I was in Minas Tirith and heard my son was sick, so I -"  
  
"Where?" said the man, thoroughly confused.  
  
"Minas Tirith," Aragorn repeated. Still the man looked puzzled.  
  
"The Tower of the Guard?" said Aragorn. The man shook his head.  
  
"It's the city of Gondor! Don't you know anything? Well, anyway, my son was taken ill and so I went to pick some Athelas, and - "  
  
"Pick what?" the man asked, completely discombobulated.  
  
"Athelas!" said the exasperated Aragorn. "Kingsfoil! It's a kind of medicinal weed, used to slow poison. So, I went to pick some of this Kingsfoil, and I found a large gold coin, with a strange skull in the middle. When I picked it up, the world around me disappeared and I reappeared in a grove of those very odd trees on the beach."  
  
"Palm trees," corrected the man.  
  
"Palm trees, thank you," said Aragorn, annoyed. "And now I do not know where I am."  
  
"What did you say you found which brought you here?" said the man, now fairly interested.  
  
Aragorn was quite taken aback. He had expected the man not to believe him.  
  
"It was an odd sort of gold coin, with raised markings around the edges. In the middle there was a grotesque skull."  
  
Now the man seemed to be very interested. Then, without explaining his interest, he said, "I'm Will Turner," he said, putting his feeble sword back in its sheath and holding out his now free hand. Aragorn shook it.  
  
"Aragorn Evenstar," he said. Will raised his eyebrows, as though as to say, "That's an odd name," but resisted actually saying it.  
  
"Come on," said Will, releasing Aragorn's hand. "I'll get you a room in the Eagle's Nest."  
  
They were about to go into the inn, when two burly men in red jackets, and black tricorns came running down the street, shouting after them. They were each carrying a long, metal, tube like object with a wooden end and a blade fitted above the opening at the front.  
  
"Oh, damn," said Will. "Bailiffs."  
  
"Excuse me?" said Aragorn.  
  
"Bailiffs," Will said again. "You see, you can't exactly charge into the town square waving a dirty great sword around."  
  
"What are they carrying?" said Aragorn, eyeing the tube like objects.  
  
"Muskets," replied Will, slightly confused as to why Aragorn did not know what muskets were. "They fire a lead ball to kill from long range."  
  
"The same principle as a bow, then?" said Aragorn.  
  
"Yes." said Will, faintly at the idea that Aragorn was still stuck in the era of bows and arrows.  
  
The two burly men hurried up to Aragorn and Will.  
  
"You're under arrest," said the first one, "by order of Comm'dore Norrin'ton."  
  
How will Aragorn escape from the bailiffs? Is Will going to be able to squeeze him out of it? Find out in Chapter 3, which I will upload as soon as possible. 


	3. Becket and Ives

Thank you to my reviewers, miss-ferret and Allyse. You guys are really helping. Sorry about the little gap in between this chapter and Chapter 2. I'll get Chapter 4 up quick after this one :)  
  
Aragorn's hand flew to Andúril's hilt and it was half-way from its scabbard when Will stopped him.  
  
"Don't dig the hole deeper," he hissed at him. Aragorn reluctantly slid the sword back down into the sheath. He looked up to see the two men now had their muskets pointed at him. He raised his hands.  
  
"I am sorry," said Aragorn, "but what is the meaning of this?"  
  
"I though' I just made that clear," said the first one in a heavy Yorkshire accent. "You're under arrest by ordr of Comm'dore Norrin'ton."  
  
"By order of whom?" said Aragorn.  
  
"Commodore Norrington," said the second man gruffly. He had a very southern English accent. "Don't you know who Commodore Norrington is?"  
  
Aragorn shook his head.  
  
The second bailiff rolled his eyes.  
  
"Commodore Norrington," he said, "is the commander of Port Royal's fleet."  
  
"A fine fleet it is, too," said the first, beaming.  
  
The both of them looked fairly jolly, and Aragorn thought he might just be able to sneak away, until they snapped back into action.  
  
"Any'ow," said the first bailiff, "we've no choice but to take yer down to the gov'ner. We'll be your escorts."  
  
"My name is Lieutenant Thomas Becket," said the second bailiff.  
  
"I'm Private Ives," said the first. "Never knew me mum, forgotten me first name." he muttered, turning Aragorn around brusquely and fastening some shackles around his wrists. Becket kept his musket pointed at him.  
  
"Right less go," said Ives, and put the key ring in his pocket. Becket lowered his musket and grabbed ahold of Aragorn's right arm. Ives took his left. They started walking Aragorn away.  
  
Aragorn looked back at Will desperately. Ives saw this, and faced him back forward.  
  
"Straight ahead, now," he said. "Don't be thinkin' your friend's going to get you out of this."  
  
They were at the end of the street and about to round the corner, when Will caught up to them. He cleared his throat.  
  
"Excuse me good sirs," he said.  
  
Ives turned around.  
  
"Yes?" he said.  
  
"I should like to protest about this arrest," said Will.  
  
Ives narrowed his eyes.  
  
"Woss your name?" he said.  
  
"Will Turner," said Will.  
  
Ives jumped slightly.  
  
"Turner?" he gasped. "'ere, Tom, we've got ourselves Will Turner."  
  
"William Turner?" said Becket. "Mrs Swann's husband?"  
  
"Yes, that is me," said Will.  
  
"Well, well, well," said Ives jovially. "How's the missus then?"  
  
"Ill, for your information," said Will.  
  
"Oh dear," said Becket, concerned.  
  
"But I don't need to talk about that," said Will. "I need to encourage this man's freedom."  
  
Becket and Ives chortled.  
  
"I'm sorry Mr Turner, but we can't do that," said Ives. "See, we've got orders from the gov'ner to arrest this man."  
  
"Why is this?" said Aragorn.  
  
"Well, your behavior on arrival to Port Royal," said Becket.  
  
"Waving a dirty great sword around..." said Ives.  
  
"I ask you," said Becket.  
  
"Please, if you will hear me out, I can explain everything," said Will.  
  
"This man is my brother," he said. "His name is James Turner. He is visiting Port Royal for a couple of days. The reason he had his sword out and about is because he suffers from a slight mental condition and so did not know the significance of what he was doing."  
  
Aragorn shot Will a filthy look.  
  
"He seems smart enough," said Ives, straightening Aragorn up.  
  
"It's not a question of how smart he is," said Will. "True, he is very good with words. However, he does not fully know the consequences resulting from his actions."  
  
The bailiffs considered this for a moment.  
  
"Well, alright, we'll let it go this time," said Becket. "Ives, remove his irons."  
  
Ives took the shackles off Aragorn's wrists.  
  
"And we'll need to take your sword as well," said Becket.  
  
"What?" said Aragorn indignantly.  
  
"You heard me," Becket replied coolly. "Give your sword to Private Ives. When you leave Port Royal, you will have it back."  
  
Will mouthed, "Hand it over," to Aragorn. The guards were watching him so they did not see Will do this. Aragorn reluctantly unbuckled Andúril's scabbard from his belt and passed it over to Ives.  
  
"Good day to you Mr Turner," said Ives. "And you Mr Turner," he added to Will. He and Becket lowered their muskets and walked away down the street.  
  
"Right, that's taken care of," said Will.  
  
"That was brilliant," said Aragorn.  
  
"Thank you...Aragorn, was it?" said Will.  
  
"Yes," said Aragorn with a laugh.  
  
"Right, let's go get you a room in the Eagle's Nest until you can get back to wherever you came from," said Will. They began walking off down the street. Will had puffed himself up again and was walking very pompously - he was now very full of himself.  
  
"I must get my sword back before I leave," said Aragorn darkly.  
  
"I must admit, it was rather well-crafted," said Will, deflating slightly.  
  
--------------  
  
Okay, there's Chapter 3. Sorry it's not all that exciting just yet, but don't worry, it will get better. And, if you're waiting for Jack to turn up, rest assured that he will soon. 


	4. Of Grotesque Gold

Thank you to bunny-luver for reviewing my story!  
  
I guess everyone's waiting for Jack to turn up, eh? If you are, then you'll be very pleased with this chapter ;)  
  
Let's go.  
  
----------  
  
The Eagle's Nest was a very comfortable inn. The whole building gave an immediate impression of extreme tidiness and cleanliness. There wasn't a spot to be seen on any of the furniture, walls, floors, or even ceilings throughout the entire inn.  
  
Aragorn was given a small room on the second floor. It was cozy enough; there was a one-person bed inside which was very soft and bliss to sleep in; a classical-style fireplace, a wardrobe to stow clothes and possessions in, and even a writing desk which came with its own supply of quills, ink, and parchment. Aragorn very much liked the room, though, he thought, it could use a bit of Elvish art.  
  
The eventful afternoon had given Aragorn an unusual sense of tiredness, so he dropped onto his bed and went to sleep. It was four o'clock.  
  
* * *  
  
He awoke two hours later, feeling completely refreshed. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and looked around him. He was dismayed, and disappointed, to see that he was still in the Eagle's Nest. He quickly got out of his bed and went downstairs.  
  
The main room was completely spick-and-span. Every birch table and chair reflected the sunlight pouring through the crystal clear window. At the main counter was Mr Cameron Munditieson, the owner of the inn. He was a stout, grizzled old man with a chest-length grey beard and flyaway grey hair. He had an exceptionally large and crooked nose. His least favourite things in the world were tardiness and untidiness, and every few minutes you would see him flatten his hair back down, merely to have it frizz up again within a minute.  
  
The room was fairly crowded. Most of the people there were upper middle class, and Aragorn could not pass a table without being grimaced at, be it at his clothes or his hair. One man flashed him a particularly dirty look and began whispering in an audible whisper to a woman next to him.  
  
"Look at his hair...what a boorish ruffian."  
  
Aragorn said nothing, but discreetly lifted his cloak slightly to reveal to the man his curved knife. Needless to say, the man quickly shut up.  
  
Aragorn walked up to the bar and sat down on a seat. He waited for a moment before Mr Munditieson came up to him. He scanned him up and down, looking disgusted, but said nothing but, "What can I get you, Mr...?"  
  
"Turner," said Aragorn. "Ale please."  
  
"Small or large?" said Munditieson. He had a very wheezy, Caribbean-accent.  
  
"Large," said Aragorn.  
  
Munditieson passed up a spotless wooden flagon from a shelf under the counter, uncorked a shining bottle of brown ale and filled the flagon with it.  
  
Feeling suddenly dry, Aragorn and took a deep swig of the ale. It wasn't bad - nothing on the ale he got back home, though.  
  
"So where you from Mr Turner?" wheezed Munditieson, now cleaning a glass.  
  
"Erm - nearby," said Aragorn awkwardly.  
  
"I see," said Munditieson, putting the glass down and beginning on another. "How are you enjoying Port Royal?"  
  
"It's not bad," said Aragorn. He took another swig of his ale.  
  
"Are you satisfied with my inn?" asked Munditieson.  
  
"Yes, it's very nice," said Aragorn.  
  
"Good," said Munditieson, relieved.  
  
A few moments passed, in which Aragorn sat, drinking his ale quietly. Munditieson said nothing, but continued to wipe out glasses. Just then, the bell on the door tinkled as Will came in, accompanied by another man. Or perhaps it was a woman - most of their face was covered by a maroon scarf. They had another one on their head, covering their hair (if they had any). Only their eyes and nose were visible. From what Aragorn could see of the person's face, they were dark-skinned.  
  
Will and the other person sat down on either side of Aragorn. Will's companion's swayed slightly as he walked, and his arms swung unnecessarily noticeably at his side. Aragorn took an immediate distaste to him.  
  
"James, I've got someone to see you," said Will. It took Aragorn a moment to remember that James was supposed to be his name.  
  
"Oh - sorry," said Aragorn. "What did you say?"  
  
"This man has information for you," said Will, indicating to the dark- skinned man.  
  
"Morning," said the man. He had a bit of a slur in his speech. He stretched out his hand and Aragorn shook it. It was very rough. "My name is Spack Jarrow." Aragorn got the impression that he wasn't being entirely truthful.  
  
"As I was saying - erm, Spack - this man is James Turner, my second cousin," said Will.  
  
"Pleased to meet you, Mr Evenstar," said Spack. Will had apparently told him beforehand of Aragorn's true identity.  
  
"And you, Mr Jarrow," said Aragorn, though he wasn't pleased to meet him at all.  
  
"What can I get you sir, and - madam?" said Munditieson, who had wandered over.  
  
"Rum please," said Spack.  
  
"Scotch please," said Will.  
  
"Large or small?" said Munditieson.  
  
"Large," replied Spack.  
  
"Just a small," said Will.  
  
Munditieson passed Spack a flagon like Aragorn's, and Will one of the glasses he had been cleaning as he spoke to Aragorn. He filled Will's with scotch, and Spack's with rum.  
  
"Cheers," said Spack and drained the flagon in three seconds flat, to the great disgust of Mr Munditieson.  
  
"Fill 'er up, will you?" said Spack. Munditieson refilled his mug. Spack took a swig of the rum, but left some this time.  
  
"Right," he said finally to Aragorn. He lowered his voice to an undertone. "Now, young William here informs me you stumbled across a strange, eerie sort of gold coin which transported you here. Is that right?"  
  
Aragorn nodded.  
  
"Well, when I first heard this story I thought it was a little far- fetched," said Spack, "but that was before he described it to me."  
  
He stopped, and look out of the corner of his eye at Munditieson, who had stopped cleaning out his glass to listen. He obviously sensed Spack's eyes on his back, because he quickly started cleaning again.  
  
Spack lowered his voice still further.  
  
"I am familiar with coins of this variety. They're Aztec coins, but I suppose you wouldn't be familiar with Aztecs?"  
  
Aragorn shook his head.  
  
"Ah, thought so. We don't need to go into the fine details of that, right now we are on the subject of, what was it - oh yes, Aztec gold.  
  
"Years ago, a man named Cortez discovered a tribe of people called the Aztecs. He slaughtered them unreasonably until they payed up: many great treasures and hundreds of these identical gold coins.  
  
"Two of these gold coins were -"  
  
But he was interrupted by Mr Munditieson, who had let out a yell as he caught sight of a cobweb which had appeared in one of the top corners of the room. He burst out of the bar and hurried upstairs to get a broom.  
  
"Well, now that no one's listening," said Spack, raising his voice back to normal.  
  
"Two of these gold coins were different though. You found this coin, correct? And tell me, the grotesque skull in the middle, did it have a bottom jaw?"  
  
Aragorn thought for a minute, then remembered: No, it didn't have a bottom jaw.  
  
"No," said Aragorn.  
  
"Of course it didn't," said Spack. "There was another of these coins, which did not have a bottom jaw either. All the other coins do. Some sort of magic connection has been forged between these two coins. If one should touch one of these coins, he will be transported to wherever the other is."  
  
He paused again. Munditieson had returned. Apparently the cobweb had been removed.  
  
"Oh, bloody hell," said Spack. "We're never going to get to talk about this in private here."  
  
He emptied his flagon and passed it back. As did Aragorn, and Will.  
  
"Three pounds ten shillings please," said Munditieson.  
  
"Here, I'll pay," said Will, and handed over some odd-looking coins. Munditieson counted them up, and then, accepting that they were the proper amount of money, put them in his drawer and said, "Have a nice day."  
  
"Follow me," said Spack.  
  
Aragorn, Will, and Spack got up off their stools and headed for the door. Spack was up front, swinging his arms unnecessarily flamboyant way. Aragorn got the impression that he was chronically drunk.  
  
They left the Eagle's Nest and went out into the town square, where people had resumed their normal activities, though people did speed up when Aragorn came near them, or else point at him and whisper to their friends. It was extremely irritating. Aragorn found himself unconsciously groping for Andúril's hilt in its empty scabbard.  
  
They left the town square through an alleyway down to their right, and came out again in a small cove. There were several wharves leading out into the water, many of them with ships or boats tied up, and others with people fishing off.  
  
"This way," said Spack, and led them across the beach and into the shade of a raised dock, where he looked around cautiously and then tore the scarf off his face. He had a bushy, unkempt moustache under his nose, which made him look more unkempt than ever.  
  
"Aragorn, this man is Jack Sparrow," said Will.  
  
Jack raised an eyebrow.  
  
"Captain Jack Sparrow," he corrected, putting extra emphasis on the word 'Captain'. He bent over and extracted a small chest from behind one of the dock posts, opened it, and withdrew a cutlass, flintlock pistol, and a black pirate's hat. He put the hat on his head, and tucked the sword and pistol into his belt.  
  
"Anyway, as I was saying," said Jack, "these two coins with a jawless skull are linked to each other. If you touch one of them, you will be transported near to where the other is. Make sense?"  
  
"Yes," said Aragorn. "One thing puzzles me, though: How did one of these coins come to end up in Middle-earth?"  
  
Will looked confused, but Jack looked to understand what he was talking about.  
  
"Frankly, I have no idea," said Jack, shrugging. "Firstly I don't know what the hell you mean by 'Middle-earth' and thirdly I don't know how or why it got there. But if you really want to get back, you just have to find that other coin, and it will take you back to where that coin in said Middle- earth is. Savvy?"  
  
"So all we've got to do is to find that coin?" said Will.  
  
"Aye, and I just happen to know where it is," said Jack.  
  
TBC...  
  
Finally, I've been able to work Jack in! Yay! This is my longest chapter so far, 1626 words in 6 pages! Isn't that great? I'll get chapter 5 up soon! 


	5. The Stubborn Mr Obstinée

Hello! Thank you Tam Breo, Alysse, miss-ferret, and bunny-luver for your reviews! I always like it when people review.  
  
I won't babble on any longer, and get straight to the point.  
  
----------------------  
  
"Where?" said Aragorn with a jolt of excitement.  
  
He couldn't believe it. It was going to be so easy to find it? He had thought that it was going to involve some tediously long search to find the gold. But now here was a man who knew where it was.  
  
"Anyhow, if you're serious about getting back to this Middle-earth," said Jack, ignoring Aragorn, "then I suggest we get started straightaway. We'll need a ship, and a crew if possible. Aragorn, seeing as how this whole thing was you're idea, I suppose you can tag along."  
  
He started walking, giving an enormous sway as he started off.  
  
"Are you sure this man can help us?" whispered Aragorn to Will. "I mean, he's seems like a few waves short of a shipwreck to me."  
  
"Well, there's some truth there," said Will, and grinned. Then, serious again, "he was driven half mad about ten years ago, when he was marooned on a tiny island."  
  
"How did he get off?" said Aragorn, interested.  
  
"I don't know," said Will. "You should ask him. But anyway, don't let first impressions get the better of you. He may be slightly mad, but he is one of the cleverest men you'll ever come across."  
  
"Look, am I going to have to do this meself?" said Jack irritably. He was watching them with his arms crossed. "Because I really don't feel like pretending to be Mr Evenstar in this so-called Middle-earth the rest of my life."  
  
"Right, let's go," said Will to Aragorn.  
  
Jack tied his scarf back over his mouth and led them up the sandy slope and onto the dry, wooden dock. Aragorn looked down to the end. Along the sides were various ships and boats. There were about ten fishers on each side of the dock, dangling their feet in the water and either holding rods or watching lobster traps.  
  
"Right, you see that ship there?" said Jack, pointing down the dock.  
  
"Which one?" said Aragorn irritably. "You should be more specific. There are a dozen ships 'there'."  
  
"The one right at the end," said Jack. "We are going to commandeer that ship and take you to your gold. Savvy? Right, let's go or we'll miss the tide."  
  
He started off down the wooden bridge to the lower half of the dock, when Aragorn remembered something.  
  
"Jack - er, ahem, Spack!" said Aragorn. "We cannot go yet. Andúril is still under lock and key!"  
  
"What's still under lock and key?" said Jack, turning around. "Look mate, we've got to hurry. The tide leaves in half an hour."  
  
"We must retrieve Andúril before I return to Middle-earth," said Aragorn flatly. "It is the only one of it's kind; the blade of Isildur re-forged! It must not be lost to us."  
  
"Let's back up, here," said Jack, returning to Aragorn to talk to him. His breath was horrible. "What's this Andúril you're talking about?"  
  
"A powerful sword," said Aragorn. "The greatest of any blade in the world."  
  
"I shouldn't like to have to make Aragorn leave it here," piped up Will.  
  
"I cannot go back without it," said Aragorn.  
  
"You will not go back without it," said Jack, putting extra emphasis on the word 'will'. "But you can. I had a conversation along these lines with Will here once."  
  
"I don't care," said Aragorn through gritted teeth. "I am going to retrieve Andúril now."  
  
Jack rolled his eyes.  
  
"If it's that much to you we'll go get it," he said. "Hurry up, we're on limited time here."  
  
"Alright, Aragorn and I will go and retrieve his sword," said Will. "Jack, you go and get us a ship ready."  
  
"Hold it," said Jack. "I'm captain here, I give orders. Right: Will, you and Aragorn go and retrieve the sword, and I will get us a ship ready."  
  
With that, he walked off down the bridge and on to the dock.  
  
"Right, let's go," said Will. He and Aragorn took off down the cobblestone street and into the town square. Business had resumed as normal, people walking around in and out of various buildings; people talking amongst themselves; vendors selling and trading items to other people.  
  
"Which way was it taken?" said Aragorn.  
  
"Down that way," said Will, pointing down the road which led away from the Eagle's Nest. There was a roman-style arch in the entrance. "It's getting dark, so if we expect to retrieve it today, we'd better hurry."  
  
"Why? Why can't we get it during the night?"  
  
"Well, at night a new watchman goes on duty, Mr Obstinée. He's about the most stubborn and bad-tempered watchman known to mankind. You don't want to get on his bad side; he can make your life hell.  
  
"Let's go before he goes on," said Will, looking up at the sky. They began down the road with the roman-style archway, until they reached an intersection where three roads (not counting the one they just came through) led out at different angles.  
  
"Right, we want to go this way," said Will, and led Aragorn down the road leading to the right, which took them to a marble staircase. They went down this staircase, which took them to a grey brick building with barred windows and an iron door. A black sign with gold lettering beside the door read 'Port Royal Prison'.  
  
"Hurry, he'll be on soon," said Will. They hastened down the stone steps and to the door. Will reached for the brass doorknob, when it turned and the door opened with a *creeeeaaaak*. In the doorframe stood Becket and Ives, musketless this time, and not wearing their tricorns or redcoats. Instead they were wearing white waistcoats and brown shirts, and nothing on their heads.  
  
"Mr Turner!" said Ives, who had spiky black hair with a bald patch in the middle. "And Mr Turner! Didn't 'spect to see you of all people 'ere."  
  
"Is there something wrong?" said Becket. He was completely bald.  
  
"No," said Aragorn. "I was just wondering whether I could have my sword back."  
  
"Ohh, good luck with that," said Ives. "We're not on duty anymore so we're legally speaking not auth'rized to get your sword for you. Const'ble Obstinée's on duty now. I don't think you're going to have much luck asking him to give it to you."  
  
"Blast," said Aragorn. "Well, when are you on duty then?"  
  
"Not until the day after tomorrow," said Ives apologetically. "Constable Obstinée's taking a full shift tomorrow."  
  
"Well it's worth a try," said Will. "Let's go, James."  
  
"Good luck," said Becket as they entered the dingy prison building and shut the door behind them. In front of them nothing but a narrow staircase leading down, presumably to where the prisoners were.  
  
"Come on," said Will, and led Aragorn down the steps into a long room lined with prison cells. It was dimly lit; the torches had not yet been set and the only light (dim evening light, at that) was coming from the barred prison windows.  
  
"I think I'd prefer to live in the Eagle's Nest," said Aragorn in matter-of- fact tones, grimacing around the room.  
  
Each cell was just large enough to accommodate four people (most of them had five inside, though). Beside the stairwell they just came from was a shaggy, scruffy brown dog which held a keyring in its mouth. Most of the prisoners seemed to be attempting to goad the dog into coming over.  
  
"This way," said Will, cocking his head to the left. Aragorn followed him down the long room, past the deranged, stupefied, or otherwise mad prisoners to an iron door down on the opposing wall. To their left was a long, wide corridor, which couldn't be seen down because it was hidden in shadows.  
  
"This is the room where confiscated possessions are kept," Will explained to Aragorn, beckoning towards the door.  
  
There was no one there.  
  
"Isn't Mr Obstinée supposed to be on guard?" said Aragorn.  
  
"Yes, he is," said Will, furrowing his brow and looking around him. He was nowhere to be seen.  
  
"Perhaps we should knock," he said and reached out his hand. He rapped his knuckles on the iron door.  
  
Nothing happened. Will knocked again.  
  
For a moment, nothing happened again. Then a sinisterly suspicious voice came from beside them, making them both jump.  
  
"Yessss?" it said.  
  
Out of the shadows of the corridor to their left came the man Aragorn supposed was Mr Obstinée, walking with great strides and his hands tight behind his back. He wasn't wearing a redcoat and tricorn as Becket and Ives had been. Instead he wore a blue jacket over a white coat, and wore a bicorn. He wasn't carrying a musket, but had a flintlock pistol tucked into his belt. He had granite-grey eyes.  
  
"Ah, good evening, Mr Obstinée," said Will, and smiled falsely.  
  
"Constable Obstinée, if you don't mind," snapped the man. He had a slightly thinned French accent.  
  
"Sorry, Constable Obstinée," said Will apologetically.  
  
"That's alright Mr Turner," said Obstinée irritably. Then he rounded on Aragorn. "And who is your - filthy - friend here?"  
  
"This is my cousin, sir," said Will. "James Turner. He's visiting Port Royal for a few days."  
  
Obstinée reached into his pocket and extracted a black leather glove, which he put on his hand before holding it out to shake Aragorn's.  
  
"Constable Jacques Obstinée, monsieur Turner," said Obstinée. Aragorn took his hand, which squeezed his with pincer-like power. But before he even had time to start speaking, Obstinée had cut him off. "I run this Caribbean fishing village. Pathetic though the law enforcement here nearly always turns out to be, I require their aid to do so. Many foreigners come here to live, and without me to control them, they would probably revolt against us.  
  
"During your stay, you will find me a reasonable man. Play fair by me, you will enjoy your stay here. Cross me and discover the consequences, which are dire," he added with a malicious glint in his eye. Aragorn could see this was not a man to get on the bad side of.  
  
"Thank you, Constable Obstinée," said Aragorn, and Obstinée finally released his hand, which had begun to lose feeling.  
  
"Now, what would you two gentlemen be doing in the prison, of all places?" said Obstinée suspiciously, narrowing his grey eyes to slits. "Was there something you wished to ask me?"  
  
"Yes, there was, Constable Obstinée," said Will.  
  
"Well?" said the constable impatiently.  
  
"Well, you see, my cousin here is leaving tomorrow morning, and he wants to know if he could have his sword back," said Will. "It was confiscated earlier today."  
  
The colour seemed to drain from Obstinée's face. Then it came back, but got redder until it looked on the verge of explosion.  
  
"The sword?" spat Obstinée, his eyes widening and his mouth thinning in an expression of absolute fury. "This ruffian wants to have a sword placed in his hands?'  
  
"Well, it is mine after all," said Aragorn loudly, but this was a mistake. Obstinée reared up to Uruk-hai height, making himself look positively fearsome. He didn't seem to be able to get words out properly.  
  
"You dare - how dare you -" he spluttered, "GET OUT!"  
  
"Let's go," Will advised Aragorn, and tugged him by his sleeve away from the roaring constable. They ran to the staircase, Obstinée throwing chunks of broken brick and rock at them until they reached the top, and then threw themselves out the door and slammed it.  
  
"Well, that didn't work very well," said Will.  
  
Aragorn was pleased to see that Becket and Ives had gone.  
  
"What do we do now?" said Aragorn. He had to get the sword back.  
  
"Well, I suppose now Obstinée's on we've got to wait until tomorrow, when Becket and Ives are."  
  
"Becket and Ives aren't on tomorrow, remember?" Aragorn remembered them saying Obstinée was taking the shift tomorrow.  
  
"Well, we'll try again tomorrow."  
  
"Jack wanted to leave today."  
  
"Doesn't matter, the tide's left."  
  
Jack had come down the stone steps to them while they were talking.  
  
"Tide's gone. We can't leave today. We'll have to wait till tomorrow."  
  
"Well that's alright then. Aragorn and I didn't manage to get his sword back."  
  
"No?"  
  
"No, Obstinée's still got it," muttered Aragorn angrily.  
  
"Well, we'll have to try again, won't we?" said Jack.  
  
"Yes," said Will. "Aragorn and I are going to try again tomorrow. Perhaps he'll be in a better mood."  
  
"No point in that, he's not going to give it to you. I suggest either breaking in and taking the sword yourself, or lie low until he's off duty and then get someone else to give it to you."  
  
"I suppose the latter is a more sensible course of action," said Aragorn.  
  
"Yes, you're right," said Will, nodding his head. "Perhaps tomorrow, come down to where I live, and we'll think up a plan. I'm too tired at the moment."  
  
Aragorn nodded his head in agreement.  
  
"Right, we'll all sleep on this one," said Jack. "Meet tomorrow at Will's place. And do not forget to call me 'Spack' whilst we are there."  
  
-------------  
  
Whew! Chapter 5 for you. That's the longest chapter I've ever written. Anyway, please review!  
  
While you're waiting for Chapter 6 to come out, I suggest these stories: Harry Potter and the Legacy of the Ring by Fyre; and The Order of the Phoenix: My Way by bunny-luver. They're very good. 


	6. Breaking the Law

Hello, everyone. Sorry my most recent chapters have been taking *sooo* long to post, but I've been really busy of late. I've been up to my ears in homework and what not recently. I apologize for any inconvenience.  
  
Anyway, here we go with Chapter 6.  
  
---------------  
  
Aragorn had a restless sleep that night. Comfortable though his bed was, and soothing though the piping music from out in the street was, he could not get any rest. The image of Andúril kept popping into his head. Aragorn saw himself there as well, holding Andúril and smiting Orcs and Uruk-hai with it. Then he saw it chained to the wall in a small, dank room. The room was at the end of a long corridor, lined on the right with cells with room for four.  
  
Aragorn ran towards Andúril - the door was open - but then the door closed, and the glowering, almost evil form of Obstinée stepped in front of it, laughing maniacally.  
  
"Step away!" shouted Aragorn, but his voice sounded distant and faint. "Andúril is mine! And none other's!"  
  
But all Obstinée did was continue to cackle.  
  
"I'm warning you..." said Aragorn, shaking with rage. "Give me the sword, or I'll stab you - and I mean that!"  
  
The mad constable did nothing but stand there, still laughing, while Aragorn brought himself up to full height and stormed towards him. Without knowing what he was doing, he drew back his arm and swung it forward, the knife clasped in his hand streaking across Obstinée's belly leaving a long, dark red gash there, which within seconds began bleeding profusely.  
  
Obstinée stopped laughing at once and crumpled to the floor, and instead began screaming, his face twisting in agony. Aragorn brought the knife up three more times, and brought it down three more times, striking Constable Obstinée in three different places. The madman began screaming yet harder.  
  
Then, as Aragorn brought the knife up for the fourth time, he heard footsteps behind him, and a sound like a small explosion. A section of the grey rock on the wall shattered. Aragorn span around to see two bailiffs there, but he could not see their faces; his eyes were swimming in Obstinée's blood. Aragorn could see enough though, to realize that the bailiff on his right was pointing his musket at him. Then, the small, explosion-like noise went off again, and smoke spouted from the gun, and Aragorn was suddenly struck in the flank by something small. It was incredible pain, and more force than he could ever have fathomed.  
  
He looked down to see a small, round, shining black object lodged in his side, blood spurting from the wound.  
  
Aragorn sank to his knees and clutched his broken flesh as the two bailiffs came up to him. He looked up, and saw that neither actually had a face to look at. The one on his left was holding his musket upside-down, with the blade on the end pointed straight at Aragorn. He raised it up, and brought it down, sending the sharp weapon into Aragorn's back.  
  
Aragorn screamed...and awoke in his comfortable bed in the Eagle's Nest. He felt his side and his back - no wounds. It was just a dream.  
  
He looked out the window. A thin mist was hanging outside the glass, turning a pale red as the dawn's sun shone its first rays of light upon Port Royal. Aragorn got out of his bed shakily and went to the window. He could see the red sun just appearing on the horizon of the long, crystal clear sea now turned bright red, as though it were a sea of blood.  
  
There was a knock on Aragorn's door. He turned and walked to the door, and opened it. Mr Munditieson was standing there, a broom in his left hand and a rag in the other.  
  
"Ah, Mr Turner," he said. "There is a Mr Jarrow downstairs. He would like to speak with you."  
  
"Thank you, Mr Munditieson," said Aragorn, and walked out the door. He walked down the carpeted stairs into the main room. Only a few, groggy looking people were at the tables, drinking coffee or tea. Jack was leaning up against the door frames, his purple scarf covering his mouth and his arms folded over his chest. Aragorn approached him.  
  
"Good morning, Mr Jarrow," he said tersely.  
  
"We're headed over to Elizabeth - that's Will's wife's - place to discuss a plan," said Jack in an undertone. "I would suggest if you have any luggage you bring it; we may be setting off today."  
  
"Yes, yes," said Aragorn. "Anything else?"  
  
"Not as such," said Jack. "I'll be waiting for you here. Get your stuff."  
  
Aragorn hurried back to his room, pulled on his cloak, put his knife in his belt, and went back downstairs. He went to the front desk and returned his key to Mr Munditieson.  
  
"Thank you for the most enjoyable stay," he said.  
  
"Not at all," coughed the inn's owner. "Perhaps we will see you again sometime?"  
  
"Not probable," said Jack, putting his hand on Aragorn's shoulder and pulling him backwards.  
  
Aragorn followed Jack out of the inn and into the town square. Everyone around them was getting on with their daily business, but most of them were shooting suspicious or anxious glances at Aragorn, as though they expected him to do something drastic.  
  
"Bloody tourists," Jack muttered under his breath.  
  
Aragorn nodded distractedly.  
  
"Come on, this way," Jack said, nudging Aragorn forward down the alley which took them to the beach. Once they had reached the bottom of the stone steps, they turned right, and walked along the rock wall at the edge of the beach to a black stone driveway, surrounded by gardens.  
  
"This is the home of Governer Swann, father of Miss Elizabeth Swann, wife of Will Turner," explained Jack. "Renaissance architechture. Lovely carpets. I've only been here once before - I can't risk going into the open too much, being on the run from the law and all, but it's a very nice place from what I've seen. Scenery's especially good in the room Miss Swann happens to be residing in at a given time.  
  
"Will should be there by now. I'm sure Governer Swann wouldn't object to his daughter's husband dropping in. Let's go."  
  
Jack and Aragorn progressed up the driveway, to a pair of fancy iron gates. Jack pushed one open partially and went through, followed by Aragorn. They walked up to the roman-arched doorway, and Jack knocked on it.  
  
They waited there for a minute, and then the doors swung open inwards. There stood an old, short man with a white wig. He looked from Jack to Aragorn, and Aragorn to Jack, with a look of confusion and disgust on his face.  
  
"Yes?" he said.  
  
"Good morning, sir," said Jack, putting on a ridiculously low voice. "Allow me to introduce us. I am Spack Jarrow. This is my friend, Mister James Turner. We are here to see Mister William Turner (James here's cousin) about a shipment of steel - he's a blacksmith, you see. We tried his blacksmith shop, but he was curiously absent. We have been told that his wife, Miss Elizabeth Previously-Swann-Now-Turner, lives here, and so we figured we'd try here next."  
  
"What makes you think that there is a Miss Swann living here?" asked the doorman.  
  
"Well, my suspicions were first aroused by the sign outside the gate reading 'The Swann's Residence'," said Jack.  
  
"Oh," said the doorman sheepishly. "Well, Mister Turner is not here at the - "  
  
"James, Mister Jarrow," said Will abruptly, brushing past the doorman to greet Jack and Aragorn. He had just entered the main hall. "Good to see you. Do come in."  
  
"Wipe your feet," said Jack to Aragorn, as he entered without doing so. Aragorn wiped his feet on the mat and then walked into the hall. It was fairly small, with a staircase running along the left, back, and right wall (from where it disappeared from sight).  
  
"Let's go upstairs and talk," said Will.  
  
"Tea?" said the doorman.  
  
"Please," said Jack.  
  
"No thank you," said Will. Aragorn shook his head.  
  
"Very well," said the doorman, and left through a door on the left wall.  
  
"Come on," said Will, and led Aragorn and Jack up the winding staircase. They came into another corridor, but did not need to walk far; the door they were going through was right in front of them.  
  
Will took the gold doorknob in his left hand and turned it. He pushed the door inward and led them into a small bedroom. The bed was a large, dark one with a comfortable looking spread adorning it. It rested on the far wall. The rest of the room was furnished quite elaborately. On the left wall was a large window which looked out on the entire cove of Port Royal. The water had begun to become blue again, Aragorn noticed.  
  
"Well, take a seat," said Will. Aragorn walked over to a wooden rocking chair by the window and sat down, nearly toppling over when he leaned back in it. Jack sat down in a comfortable chintz chair, and Will in a four- legged wooden chair beside him.  
  
"Well, gentlemen," said Jack, removing the scarf on his mouth, "you know why we're here. We must discuss our strategy of returning Mister Evenstar to his Middle-earth."  
  
"It is not 'my' Middle-earth," said Aragorn irritably. "It is just Middle- earth."  
  
"Fine, fine," said Jack. "We must discuss our strategy of returning Mister Evenstar to Middle-earth."  
  
"I appreciate your generosity," said Aragorn.  
  
"My pleasure," said Jack. "Well, we are going to, of course, take the fastest ship we can find. Well, at least, until we catch up to my ship, which has been strategically hidden just off-shore. Will, what is the fastest ship in these waters?"  
  
"I think it's the Seafire, but I'm not sure," said Will. He thought about it for a second. "Yes, yes, that's the one."  
  
"Thank you for your dubious answer, Will," said Jack, giving him a flicker of a grin. Will gave a small snort of laughter. "We should leave as soon as possible, so - "  
  
"Why must we leave as soon as possible?" said Will.  
  
"Well, I can't exactly just go trolling around the town square, can I?" said Jack. "It's this whole, you know, thing about being Jack Sparrow. The authorities seem to have a bit of a grudge against me. There's only so long that my disguise will hold out, so we should leave fairly soon. No doubt one or two people have already recognized me."  
  
"Such as me," said a woman's voice from the door. Jack, Will, and Aragorn looked at the door to see a woman standing there, her hazel hair set in elaborate curls.  
  
"Ah, Elizabeth darling," said Jack, smiling at her.  
  
"You want to choose your disguises more carefully, er - Spack? Is that your name now?" said the woman.  
  
"As it were, yes," said Jack. Elizabeth walked over to Will and sat down on a chair beside him.  
  
"I don't remember letting into my bedroom," she said, friendlily. Will put his arm around her shoulders.  
  
"Sorry," said Will sarcastically.  
  
"Oh, Aragorn, this is my fiancée, Elizabeth Swann," said Will. "Elizabeth, this is Aragorn Evenstar. He's a friend of mine, staying for a couple days. He's leaving soon - he doesn't seem to enjoy Port Royal that well."  
  
"I can understand that," said Elizabeth. "How do you do, Mister Evenstar?"  
  
Aragorn nodded. He could tell Will didn't want to recount the whole story to her.  
  
"Well, as I was saying, we should leave fairly soon or risk someone letting slip my true identity. Mister Evenstar, no doubt, wishes to retrieve his beloved sword from the clutches of Mister Obstinée. He has been put on full duty, as I understand it, so our only hope of getting it back is to steal it."  
  
He looked up to the wall, where a large, glass mirror was hanging by a hook. He walked over to it, and looked into its shining surface. "We have but one choice," he said. "Aragorn and I will break into Obstinée's little storage room, steal back Aragorn's sword, and then escape with the Seafire."  
  
"Is that so?" said a cool, deep, male voice from the hallway. Aragorn whipped his head around to see who it was. Jack said calmly, "Mister Norrington, how good to see you again."  
  
"And you, Mister Sparrow," said the man in the door. He was wearing a blue suit and hat, and a white wig, and looked very stern. Beside him were two more men in red coats, holding muskets, but they weren't Becket and Ives.  
  
"What is it you want of me?" said Jack coolly.  
  
"What else, but your capture?" replied Norrington.  
  
"Oh, of course," said Jack. "Mind like a sieve."  
  
"Turn around," said Norrington taking no notice of Jack's sarcasm. Jack slowly turned around and faced him, and smiled pleasantly. "Who is this?" Norrington inquired, nodding his head towards Aragorn.  
  
"This is Mister Aragorn Evenstar, a man I've been plotting with," said Aragorn. "We intend to steal back his sword which was confiscated, and then commandeer the H.M.S. Seafire, to escape."  
  
"Really?" said Norrington in a bored voice. "Take them, men."  
  
Jack drew out his cutlass, and Aragorn pulled his knife from his belt, and stood up so fast that the chair toppled over. He dared a glance at the chairs where Elizabeth and Will had been sitting, behind which they were now hiding.  
  
"You'll have to take us by force, Norrington," said Jack.  
  
Norrington retreated into the hallway, looked down to the left, and nodded. Some two dozen more men in red coats came flooding into the room, muskets pointed.  
  
"Alright, you've made your point," said Jack. "But, unfortunately, Mister Evenstar and I do not attend to come quietly. We'll kill as many of your men as it takes to escape."  
  
"You can't take twenty-six muskets and a rapier on your own," he said, drawing his own sword (quite feeble and thin, like Will's). "How do you intend to escape?"  
  
Jack grabbed a candlestick from the dresser and threw it through the window, which shattered into thousands of tiny shards, all falling dangerously onto the street below.  
  
"Send my apologies to Elizabeth about the broken window," Jack said, climbing up onto the windowsill, and putting his sword back in his belt. He turned around and leaped outside.  
  
"Get down there now!" Norrington ordered twelve of his men, who hastened to obey. "And you," he added nastily to Aragorn, "you come with us."  
  
"I certainly hope Mister Evenstar has enough sense to jump out the window as well," said Jack loudly and audibly from outside. Aragorn hurried onto the windowsill with his knife at the ready.  
  
"Roberts, get him!" Norrington roared. A portly man with a bristly moustache came forward to apprehend Aragorn. Aragorn meant to cause no harm to law-abiding men, but it was his reflexes after years of Orc-slaying that caused him to thrust his hand forward and hide the blade of his knife in the man's stomach.  
  
Once he realized what he had done - a split second too late - he pulled the knife out, aghast, and yelped (unheard beneath his victim's scream). The man dropped his musket and it fired, shattering a vase, and curled to the ground, blood billowing out.  
  
Aragorn knew he had but one choice: He turned and leapt out of the window, onto the street below. Broken glass crunching underfoot.  
  
"Good to see you're alive," said Jack gruffly. "I heard the musket fire and thought for sure you'd snuffed it."  
  
"No, it blasted a vase to shards, though," said Aragorn.  
  
"Well, let's go," said Jack. "Come - "  
  
He stopped short, grabbed Aragorn's wrist and jerked it upwards, revealing the knife, shining with dark red blood.  
  
"Oh, dear, we're in a spot of bother now," muttered Jack. "Well, you've broken the law now, and now you're on the run. Join the club. I suggest we move out of here, sharpish."  
  
This was a fairly sane idea, Aragorn discovered soon. The glass on the front door exploded into fragments; it had been fired at.  
  
"Come on, let's get out of here," said Jack, taking hold of Aragorn's sleeve and charging towards the driveway.  
  
-------  
  
Uh-oh, Aragorn's in trouble. I'll try to get Chapter 7 up faster than this one. ;)  
  
P.S. Thanks again to all my reviewers (except Acacia Jules, whose reviews were as useful as a hermit's address book). You guys are really helping. 


	7. Capture

Hello, all. Thanks for your review, Mika. I've been a little (well, a lot) delayed on getting chapters up lately in the process of also writing two stories for www.fictionpress.com, so my due apologies. Everyone's waiting for chapter 7, I suppose, so I'll shut up and get on with it.  
  
--------------  
  
Aragorn and Jack tore through the iron gates and began down the drive. Jack was massaging the side of his head; the bullet had (fortunately) only grazed his temple.  
  
"Are you alright?" Aragorn inquired dully.  
  
"Fine, fine," said Jack, looking back at the house. "Never mind that, just watch out for if they shoot again."  
  
A few seconds later, another two shots had been fired. One hit the brick pillar at the end of the driveway, and smashed a small point of rock to pieces. A ceramic sphere on the left wall flanking the road exploded, sending shards in all directions like so many pieces of white shrapnel. One missed Jack's head by bare inches, whereas Aragorn was less lucky: one of the pieces caught him in the forearm and stuck there.  
  
"Argh!" Aragorn gasped and wrenched the shard from the wound, which began bleeding openly.  
  
"I suggest you step it up a bit!" said Jack, who had just sped out of the driveway onto the beach. "They're coming!"  
  
Aragorn looked back to see that the soldiers from Will's bedroom had burst out of the door and were running towards him. They knelt when they reached the entrance to the drive and pointed their guns.  
  
"Duck!" Jack advised, and Aragorn flung himself flat on the hard ground. Jack had evidently done the same, as when the soldiers fired a volley, there was no thud or cry of pain from behind Aragorn.  
  
"Is that all you've got?" jeered Jack, standing up. He pointed his own pistol and fired, blasting the feather on Commodore Norrington's hat into pieces. "Aragorn! Hurry!"  
  
Aragorn needed no second-telling. He leapt to his feet again and ran out to join Jack on the beach. Whilst the soldiers were re-loading their weapons, Jack and Aragorn heaved the heavy iron gates to, and flung the lock into place.  
  
"That should take them a while to get open," said Jack. "But we should start moving, because they can shoot between the – "  
  
But then he let out a cry of pain as a bullet hit his thigh, sending out a shower of blood. He toppled to the ground. Aragorn looked back at the soldiers to see how close they were to firing again. Commodore Norrington had his pistol pointed and smoking – it was he who had fired the shot.  
  
Aragorn hoisted Jack up (with some difficulty) to his feet.  
  
"Can you run?" he asked.  
  
"Yes, I think so," Jack grunted.  
  
"Let me get the bullet out," said Aragorn and began to bend down, but Jack said "No!" and pulled back from Aragorn.  
  
"We have to get out of here, there is no time for that!"  
  
And with what seemed to be enormous pain, Jack jogged lopsidedly alongside Aragorn down the beach.  
  
"Quick, if we can get to a ship, we can go," said Jack.  
  
"I still have not retrieved Andúril!" Aragorn protested, and pictured it suddenly, locked away in Obstinée's storeroom, collecting dust... "NO!" Aragorn cried out loud. He had not felt it for so long...  
  
"We can't, they'd catch us!" said Jack. "If it's so important to you, off you go. I, personally, am taking the first ship I can get to."  
  
He started limping towards the dock, but Aragorn, who was faster, stood in front of him and drew his knife. He pointed it between Jack's eyes.  
  
"You are coming with me to get Andúril whether you like it or not," he said slowly. The fury of Gondolin flickered in Aragorn's piercing eyes.  
  
"Fine," said Jack, and pushed the knife away. "Let's go, they'll be catching up soon."  
  
And so they began to run as fast as possible up to the streets of Port Royal. They went up the stairs (with some difficulty) and were barraged halfway by bullets – the soldiers had reached the beach and fired again. Fortunately none of the shots was aimed accurately, and so neither Jack nor Aragorn was injured.  
  
They reached the summit of the stairway ("Finally," grunted Jack) six volleys (two minutes) later. Aragorn jogged and Jack hobbled on to the cobblestone streets of Port Royal. They tore down the long, narrow alleyway which would lead them to the town square. Norrington's men fired again, blasting a wooden shutter off its hinges, greatly surprising the woman leaning out the window. The shutter fell down and hit Aragorn, so that it broke in the middle and his head stuck through it like a shaggy-haired mole from its hole. Jack seemed to find enough energy to laugh and make fun of this.  
  
They reached the town square, amid suspicious and amused stares of the people. It annoyed Aragorn, whose hand groped at his belt for his sword that wasn't there. Jack pulled him down the alleyway to their right, to the four-way fork. They took another right and came to the marble stairs again. This they bolted down and came to the gloomy, grey building with the iron door.  
  
"Quickly, inside," said Jack. "That bastard, Norrington, could be right on our tail."  
  
Aragorn fumbled with the door handle (having never used one before in his life). He didn't know whether to turn it clockwise, counter-clockwise, push it, pull it, or anything.  
  
"Oh, well don't open it too quickly now," said Jack sarcastically, as Aragorn finally discovered to turn it clockwise. The door swung open, and Jack and Aragorn leapt inside. They slammed the iron door shut and slid the catch closed.  
  
"Alright, where is it now?" asked Jack.  
  
"Down the steps and to the left," answered Aragorn, pointing down the stairwell.  
  
"Come on then, don't stand around all day," said Jack, and began tramping down the steps. It was all Aragorn could do to stop himself from lashing out at Jack, whose stupid sarcastic remarks were irritating him greatly.  
  
But he managed to restrain himself and follow Jack down the stairs. They met up half way down. They continued down to the bottom, where they saw the cells lined against the far wall. The same dog was guarding the keys, and the same ugly faces were squeezing against the bars (except a few short, no doubt already taken to the gallows).  
  
"Right, let's g – " Jack started, but then gave a yelp of pain as the butt of a musket collided with his left temple. There was a bleeding cut where it had hit.  
  
"Jack Sparrow, isn't it?" said a sneering voice. Aragorn turned to his left to see Mr Obstinée standing over him, holding a musket in his hands. Then he looked at Aragorn and said, "And Mister Turner?"  
  
"Yes, that's right," said Aragorn defiantly.  
  
"I remember you," sneered Obstinée. "You're the little scelerat with the sword, aren't you?"  
  
"Very true," said Aragorn. "What are you doing here so early?"  
  
"I think the more prudent question is what are you doing here?" said Obstinée.  
  
"I – " started Aragorn, but stopped.  
  
"Trying to steal your sword?"  
  
"N – yes."  
  
Mr Obstinée looked most pleased with himself.  
  
"So!" he shrieked. "We'll see about that, won't we? Sword back, indeed."  
  
He raised his rifle to butt Aragorn with it, but Aragorn was on his guard. He drew his knife quickly and flung it up to block the blow. He knocked the rifle out of the way. Obstinée grinned savagely.  
  
"So you can fight, can you?" he barked.  
  
"That's right," said Aragorn fiercely. "Fighting is my talent."  
  
"Is it, then?" said Obstinée. "That's a very violent-looking knife. I think I'll just have to confiscate that – "  
  
He reached for the knife in Aragorn's hand, but Aragorn whipped it up and down viciously, leaving a slice down the back of the constable's hand. He gasped in pain and withdrew his arm. Aragorn swung the knife, forming an 'X' in mid-air, but Obstinée had stepped back soon enough.  
  
As Aragorn raised his hand, Obstinée butted him in the stomach with his rifle and as Aragorn keeled over, he thumped him over the head with it. Aragorn slumped to the ground, his vision clouding with blood. He heard Obstinée laughing maliciously, and then all went black.  
  
--------------  
  
Uh oh...sorry the chapter's so short. I'll make the others longer. Please review! 


	8. The Escape

Another late chapter here. Sorry. I know you just want to find out what the hell happens to Aragorn and Jack, so here you go.  
  
----------------------  
  
"Aragorn... Aragorn..."  
  
The gentle female voice softly whispered in his head to him. She was calling him. Aragorn knew he had to reach her.  
  
"Aragorn..." the voice whispered again.  
  
"Arwen..." he murmured.  
  
"Open your eyes, Aragorn."  
  
He then felt the soft touch of her lips against his as she kissed him, and embraced her. When she pulled away, he slowly lifted the lids of his eyes open to look at her. They were in an Elven chamber in Rivendell. Sun poured in through a few open windows in beams of soft golden light. Birds sung their songs outside, unaware that anything was taking place inside.  
  
Arwen was paler than usual. She smiled when she saw him, but Aragorn knew something was wrong. A single tear rolled down her right cheek.  
  
"What is it?" he asked. "What is wrong?"  
  
Arwen motioned behind her with her hand. Aragorn looked past her to a bed which stood at the wall opposite him. There was a small, solitary figure lying under the milk-white sheets which shrouded him on the bed.  
  
The Elven queen approached this figure and put her hand on his.  
  
"Look," she said gently. "Look who's here..."  
  
The child feebly turned its head to look at Aragorn. Though it was hollowed by sickness, Aragorn could see Arwen's features in the child's face, and his own long, shaggy hair clinging to the sides of its head and falling down across the bridge of its nose.  
  
"Eldarion," Aragorn gasped and made to get up, but Arwen hurried over to him and stilled him.  
  
"Aragorn, wake up," she whispered distantly.  
  
"No, I don't want to leave you," he said.  
  
"Wake up," she repeated. "Come back quickly. Now you must wake."  
  
"Arwen, I don't – "Aragorn began, but his queen stopped him with a hand to his lips and kissed him once more.  
  
"Wake up, Aragorn," she said, her voice becoming fainter and fainter. "Wake up...wake up..."  
  
* * *  
  
"Wake up!" said a voice, a man's. "Aragorn, wake up!"  
  
A pair of rough hands took him by the shoulders and shook him violently. Aragorn's eyes flickered open and as they adjusted to the darkness that filled the prison, he could make out Jack Sparrow's face staring at him, full of concern.  
  
"Finally," he said, snapping back into his usual manner. "Come on, we've got to get out of here."  
  
Aragorn was still thunderously tired, and found it very difficult to wake up fully. That was until a copious amount of icy water splashed onto the nape of his neck, jerking him awake unpleasantly. He leapt to his feet (smashing his head on the stone ceiling) and proceeded to rage at Jack.  
  
"Finished?" Jack said, after a rant that lasted minutes. "Good. Let's get moving."  
  
It was only then that Aragorn realized where they were. They were standing inside a cell, one of those in the prison. The floor was covered in straw.  
  
"How can they ever fit both of us in here?" said Aragorn, massaging the angry bump on the top of his head where he hit it on the ceiling.  
  
"Three of us, I think you'll find, mate," said Jack, beckoning to the back of the cell. Leaning against the far wall was a hideous skeleton, completely bare save for a few placed where rotting meat clung to it. It gave Aragorn quite a fright to see it. He had witnessed such atrocities before, but this was quite unexpected.  
  
Aragorn observed that several of the bones were missing.  
  
"Where are the rest of the bones?" he asked.  
  
"I've been trying to get that mange-ridden fleabag over there, over here," he said. "But to no avail," he added with a definite tone of irritance in his voice.  
  
Aragorn looked beyond the rusting bars of the cell door into the corridor, where the same grey dog he and Will had seen before sat. It was scratching a flea on his ear with his right back leg.  
  
"I see," said Aragorn, noting the missing bones on the corridor floor. "Fairly sacrilegious, isn't it?'  
  
"Well, I'm a pirate," said Jack. "Can't get much worse than that, can I?"  
  
"Well, the real question is, is it working?" asked Aragorn.  
  
"Let's see," said Jack, mock-thinking. "Yes, it is. That's why the dog's still sitting on his arse over there, and we don't have the bloody keys. For a king, you're surprisingly dull-witted, you know that, don't you?"  
  
Aragorn constrained another rage towards the insolent pirate.  
  
"Now, we'll just sit tight and think of another idea," said Jack, sitting down beside the skeleton.  
  
The king moved over to the barred, square window and looked out of it. The sun was just disappearing on the horizon, behind the smooth sea.  
  
"You've been out a long time," said Jack, examining different twigs of straw.  
  
"I can see that," Aragorn said irritably. "I wonder if Will's got us a ship yet?"  
  
"I shouldn't think so," said Jack. "Will wasn't asked to get us a ship. Why would he do it?"  
  
"Some people do things for others without instruction," snapped Aragorn, looking at Jack.  
  
"I wouldn't," said Jack coolly. "Don't see anything in it for me. Unless of course they said they'd pay me," he added as an afterthought.  
  
"Only interested in your profit," muttered Aragorn hotly.  
  
"If you get an idea, tell me," he said. "I'm going to sleep."  
  
And with that he sat down on the softest mound of straw he could find and leaned up against the wall. He closed his eyes and began to drift into an easy sleep. He was about to do so when there was a splash and a dog yelped, and there was a clatter of metal on the ground. Aragorn jerked awake, and walked over to the barred door.  
  
The guard-hound was nowhere to be seen, but the bronze keyring lay on the ground, beside another cell door  
  
"Excellent," Jack remarked, placing the wooden bucket on the ground. "Now we just need to get it."  
  
"Oh, God no," he said suddenly. Aragorn turned to get a closer look, and saw a knobbly hand reach out of the cell beside theirs and grasp the keyring, and pull it into the cell. Then it reappeared and pushed several different keys into the lock, until it finally found the right one, and the door swung open with a creak. A very ugly man emerged from the doorway, took the keyring and began to walk past Aragorn's and Jack's cell.  
  
"Oi! Oi, mate!" said Jack. The ugly man stopped and looked at them. His nose was smashed in, and he had very little hair left. He looked to have been a stout man, hollowed by years of prison.  
  
"Here, let us out of here," Jack said. "Give us the keys."  
  
"Hmm...and why would I want to do that?" the man teased, grinning to reveal a set of rotting teeth. The front two were missing.  
  
"Because I take it you wish to see another dawn," Jack said pleasantly. The man gave a harsh, stupid laugh.  
  
"What are you thuppothed to do?" he said, mispronouncing due to his lack of front teeth. "You're behind barth."  
  
"Bars can be broken," said Jack, and heaved himself against the cell door. It shook, but very little. Jack grasped his left shoulder in pain, but made no sound. He tried twice more, the man laughing in mirth, before Aragorn tried to stop him.  
  
"Sparrow!" he said angrily. "Stop!" But Jack plowed valiantly on, until his shoulder was in so much pain that he stopped and sat down.  
  
The man was now trapped in a raucous peal of laughter. "My God, this is good," he remarked and began laughing again. Jack smirked and laughed quietly and sarcastically. Then comprehension seemed to dawn on his face, though the man did not seem to notice.  
  
"Funny, isn't it?" said Jack happily, standing up and approaching the cell door.  
  
"Very much tho," chuckled the man.  
  
"Easily amused, aren't you?" said Jack. "This funny?"  
  
With that, he gripped a horizontal bar with both hands and strained to push upwards, but nothing happened. This seemed to entertain the prisoner even more.  
  
"Aragorn," Jack said through gritted teeth, "give – me – hand!"  
  
Aragorn walked over to the door and gripped another horizontal bar.  
  
"Lift – and – push!" Jack grunted, and Aragorn did as he was told. Slowly, the door began to lift off its hinges, but the prisoner did not notice. Finally, the door was lifted high enough that when they pushed, it fell clean off and landed on the prisoner's foot. He silently howled in pain as Jack and Aragorn stepped out of the cell and approached a set of clothes hooks on the walls, where hung Aragorn's knife and Jack's pistol, hat, and sword.  
  
They retrieved their belongings quickly and quietly, so as not to attract attention. When Jack had inserted his cutlass back into his scabbard, donned his hat and put his pistol in his belt, he motioned towards the door at the end of the corridor. It was one Aragorn recognized – dark iron with a small, barred window near the top, locked tightly. Inside rested Andúril, Flame of the West. It seemed to Aragorn that his chances of getting it back were greater than ever.  
  
"Come on, let's go," said Jack quietly. "Leave that filthy cur over there by himself. Let him think about his deeds a bit."  
  
They quickly edged over to the door. Aragorn peered through the window. He could slightly see the hilt of his great sword, behind another layer of confiscated items. His blood boiled with rage. It seemed that a metronome was ticking inside his head, angering him in the greatest.  
  
However, he soon realized the ticking was not inside his head, but coming from Jack. He had bent down and inserted Aragorn's knife in the keyhole of the lock, and was attempting to pick it.  
  
"What are you doing?" Aragorn snarled, as loudly as he dared.  
  
"Oh, sorry, do you mind," said Jack calmly. It was not a question.  
  
Aragorn waited impatiently while his companion twisted and forced his Elf knife in the lock, until finally there was a satisfying click! and the padlock opened.  
  
"Ta very much," said Jack, handing Aragorn's knife back to him and pulling the padlock off. "Quick, get your sword and let's get out of here."  
  
The king heaved the door open and hurried into a small dingy room. There were shelves around the walls, covered with confiscated rapiers, pistols, muskets, cigarillo cases, crates of booze, and all manners of things. Aragorn quickly spotted his magnificent sword amongst the pathetic rapiers of the age, and took it.  
  
It felt marvelous to be holding it again. Just the feel of the twisted blue handle on the hilt brought back sudden memories of battle, and he felt a fire rise within him. He clipped the blade (still in its scabbard) to his belt and tiptoed out of the room.  
  
"Got it," he said to Jack.  
  
"Good," the pirate replied, pushing the door to. He pocked the padlock, however. "Let's get out of this place."  
  
They walked down to the criminal with his foot underneath the cell door, having not been able to free himself yet.  
  
"You," said Jack, pointing at him. "Give us those keys. Please?"  
  
The man handed over the keyring with a scowl. Aragorn then made his way to each of the cells in the block, unlocking each one and speaking to the prisoners inside, who followed him afterwards.  
  
"This," said Jack to Aragorn, after returning, "is our crew. Hopefully we can leave in the night, when we won't be noticed." He then turned to the prisoner whose foot he had crushed. "Would you be interested in joining a pirate crew?" he asked him politely.  
  
The criminal nodded his head vigorously and angrily, and Aragorn pushed the door off of his foot.  
  
"Right, you lot," said Jack commandingly, "let's go."  
  
No one moved. They were not used to being ordered.  
  
"Out the door, let's go," said Jack. Still no one moved.  
  
He sighed, and took his pistol from his belt. He cocked it and fired a shot into the roof, showering them with tiny pieces of rock. This got the prisoners on their toes, as they moved silently and swiftly towards the door.  
  
* * *  
  
Finally up. Thanks for reviewing, Zammy. 


	9. Will and Elizabeth's Plan

Hello, everybody. I'm getting this chapter up quicker, as you can see. I'm sure everyone's glad to hear that. Thanks to, um, "Yet Another Stupid Idiot" for reviewing.  
  
------------  
  
Commodore Norrington charged over to the wounded soldier, bleeding heavily from a knife thrust to the stomach. He didn't look in very good shape – he wasn't moving.  
  
"Is he alright?" asked the commodore.  
  
"Yes, he's still breathing," replied Captain Deacon.  
  
"What of the two criminals, Sparrow and – Turner, was it?"  
  
"They escaped, sir," said Lieutenant Burns stupidly.  
  
"I can see that, Burns," snapped Commodore Norrington. "Where are they now?"  
  
"They're still down by the front door," he said. "They're recuperating from the jump."  
  
"Quickly, downstairs, all of you," ordered Norrington, following the flow of soldiers out of the doorway. "Captain, bring Private Marshall down, will you? I'm sure someone in this building can give him medical help."  
  
"Right you are, sir," said Captain Deacon, who proceeded to lift the portly Ryans up with immense difficulty and carry him out of the room. Commodore Norrington had already gone.  
  
As soon as they heard the door shut, Will and Elizabeth stood up from behind the chair they were hiding behind.  
  
"That was close," said Elizabeth.  
  
"Too close," Will added.  
  
"They're gone now," Elizabeth sighed with relief. "But after Jack and Aragorn."  
  
Suddenly came the faint sound of musket fire outside the building.  
  
Will and his fiancée hastened to the broken window and looked out it. Jack and Aragorn wear tearing down the drive, musket balls exploding all around them. Neither of them was hit – yet.  
  
When the second volley was fired, the soldiers had reached the gate to the driveway, and Jack and Aragorn had ducked milliseconds before they fired. They stood up, Jack pointed his pistol and fired. No one seemed to have been shot. Quickly, they charged through the final gate and onto the beach.  
  
The soldiers fired their next volley. But someone in the group's aim was true; blood showered from where Jack was standing and he crumpled to the ground.  
  
"Oh no," said Elizabeth gravely.  
  
"No, no, it's alright," said Will. "He's getting up, look, Aragorn's helping him."  
  
It was true – Aragorn was lifting Jack back up to his feet, and within moments they were running again. Running, going, gone. The barricade of soldiers followed with haste, loading as they went. When they reached the beach, they finished loading, and fired again. Both Will and Elizabeth were paralyzed with fear that one of them might have been hit. They had no way of telling.  
  
"I've got to go," said Will. "I need to get them a ship. They won't have one, and I'll have more chance of getting one for them than they do."  
  
He walked over to the door, which was suddenly flung open. In came a very weaselly soldier wearing a redcoat and bearing a musket. He had concealed Will behind the door when he opened it.  
  
"Oh, Miss Swann, I am sorry," he said, when he caught sight of Elizabeth. "I do apologize but did you happen to see a – "  
  
But he did not get to finish, for Will had approached him from behind and delivered him a powerful punch. He was out cold.  
  
* * *  
  
Ten minutes later, Will had struggled into the much too small uniform and come out the front door carrying the soldier's musket and wearing his tricorn. He bolted down the driveway and onto the beach, to find it deserted. The footprints of the soldiers led to the staircase leading into the town. Will could not see any trace of blood on the steps, and for that he was very thankful.  
  
But that was not where he needed to go. He turned away from the footsteps and moved onto the nearest military dock, where was ported a multitude of fine ships. Some were huge with immense firepower, some sleek and small with very little firepower, but most were about in the middle. Will had his sights set upon one of the latter with the words 'Navis Fugacis' emblazoned on the back.  
  
He marched onto the dock, his movement slightly restricted due to the tight uniform he was wearing. He approached the Navis Fugacis and began drinking in every detail of it. He needed to know whether it was the perfect one for their cause. It had a reasonable amount of firepower: eight cannons on either side. It looked to be lightweight and therefore fast. If they were followed by the British navy, they would have an advantage; they would be loathe to attack such a valuable ship.  
  
"This is the one," said Will quietly.  
  
"Excuse me, may I help you?" came a voice. It was a voice that was more high-pitched than usual, as though the man to whom it belonged had swallowed a balloon of helium.  
  
Will turned to see who was saying it. There was a man in his twenties coming over to him. He had dark hair and a pointed face, and a long stitched scar on his left temple.  
  
"Erm, yes actually," said Will, hoping his disguise was holding out. "A couple of colleagues and I are going out of a mission, and we need a ship. A fast ship, I might add."  
  
"Well, this ship is the fastest you're going to get," said the man squeakily, "if you would like a good amount of firepower as well. If not, I would advise perhaps the Hornet, over there."  
  
"No, no, we do need some firepower," said Will. "I mean, some good firepower. We're going to a very unruly place, and vicious natives have been sighted there." He sincerely hoped the man did not ask where he was going.  
  
"Oh, I see," said the man. "Then, you'd best go with this one. Of course, I'll need to see your commanding officer to make sure this is legitimate."  
  
"That would be me," said a woman's voice. They turned around to see Elizabeth walking towards them, disguised in a Nelson's navy uniform. Will secretly thought that it truly did not suit her.  
  
"You? And who are you?" said the squeaky-voiced man.  
  
"My name is Captain Rebecca N. Dispoas'd," said Elizabeth unblushingly in a very strange, false accent. "I am foreign, as you possibly assumed. I am the first woman to be admitted into the Port Royal navy."  
  
"Let me just check that," replied the man, looking inside a small book he had extracted from his pocked. "Rebecca N. Dispoas'd?"  
  
"Yes, that's right," said Elizabeth.  
  
"Well, you seem to be in order," said the man. "When do you need to have the ship by?"  
  
"Tomorrow, around noon," replied Will.  
  
"Very good, I will keep this ship prepared for you," said the man, and walked away, writing something in his book."  
  
As soon as he was out of earshot, Will let out a sigh of relief and said, "Elizabeth, you are a life-saver"  
  
Elizabeth smiled. "I figured you might need some help," she said.  
  
"How did you find out about that Dispoas'd woman?" asked Will.  
  
"She has dropped by for tea with my father a couple of times recently," Elizabeth explained. "She's an officer in the navy. A foreign woman. Two unusual traits in a navy officer."  
  
"But, how could you risk that? The real Dispoas'd could have come down the dock to talk to the man."  
  
"No, she's seriously injured at the moment," said Elizabeth. "She is not expected to recover, actually. So we should not arouse suspicion."  
  
"You are honestly one of the most brilliant people I know," said Will and hugged her. "But you have to get back to your home; you'll be too easily recognized. That man doesn't get out much, I take it. I've got some preparation to do."  
  
"Beware of Commodore Norrington," said Elizabeth. "He'll recognize you right away.  
  
"Yes, I will do so," said Will. "Now go. I have to find Jack and Aragorn."  
  
He quickly learned that Jack and Aragorn had been captured and incarcerated in the Port Royal prison. They were under strict guard, owing to Aragorn's violent attack and Jack's 'slightly unclean record' as the pirate would come to put it later.  
  
Will soon realized he would have to come up with another way of getting them their ship.  
  
TBC...  
  
--------  
  
Hey, I got that chapter up fast for my standards, didn't I? Please review! I'll get chapter ten up quick. 


	10. Out of the Prison

Told you I'd get this chapter up faster :) Thanks to Alicia the second, Suuki-Aldrea, and Just Another Stupid Idiot for reviewing my story.  
  
------------  
  
Aragorn and Jack poked their heads out the door. There was a long, stone staircase leading downwards from the corridor they were in, lit with torches. Not a sound could be heard from it. No one was there.  
  
"All clear," whispered Jack, and began stepping quietly down the steps. Aragorn followed suit, as did all the other prisoners.  
  
"Aragorn, you should probably stay at the back," said Jack. "Just in case one of these prisoners decides to recant his loyalty to us. And you've got the best weapon of all of us, so you can defend us if someone attempts to waylay our progress."  
  
"Good idea," said Aragorn, and walked past the shuffling prisoners to the back of the line. The criminal at the back of the line smirked when he looked at him.  
  
"Nice hair," he remarked. "What's it for? Making ropes out of?"  
  
Aragorn swiftly drew Andúril with the beautiful sound of it emerging from its scabbard, and held the point between the prisoner's eyes. He went cross- eyed looking at it, and grinned stupidly.  
  
"Sorry," he squeaked. Aragorn lowered the blade but did not return it to the scabbard. The prisoner quickly turned around and began walking more quickly than before.  
  
The long, sordid line walked down the staircase for a few moments before Jack stopped at the bottom, to examine a doorway on the left. The other choice was to keep going straight, down a corridor.  
  
"Alright, we'll go in here first," said Jack. "It's the armoury. Obviously, if you lot are going to be pirates, you'll need weapons."  
  
He walked into the room, followed by the rabble of criminals and Aragorn. The room was large and squre, with a barred window on the far wall. The stone walls were covered with an assortment of muskets and pistols, and there were dozens of wooden crates on the floor which would turn out to be filled with sabres and rapiers. There were kegs and barrels filled with shot, and smaller boxes filled with musket and pistol balls.  
  
In front of the window stood a guard in a redcoat, pointing a musket at them.  
  
"Don't move," he said shakily, "or I'll shoot."  
  
"Son, son," said Jack, walking up to him and putting his arm round his shoulder and patting him on the back. "Look," he said, and clobbered him square in the face. He then took the man's musket and uncocked the hammer.  
  
"Right then," he said, extracting the balls from the gun. "You can take this," to a fat man standing at the front with wiry hair, handing the musket and a shot flask to him. He then proceeded to collect muskets and shot flasks from the walls and pass them to all the other prisoners, much to their delight.  
  
He kicked a crate off the pile it was on, and when it hit the ground, the lid bounced off, revealing sabres upon rapiers upon sabres.  
  
"Take your pick," said Jack, and the prisoners hurried over to the box to select their swords.  
  
"Now Aragorn," said Jack to him, walking over. "I take it you don't need a sword."  
  
"That would certainly seem the case," replied Aragorn.  
  
"Well, you will need this," Jack said, passing him a pistol from the wall. "Do you know how to use this?"  
  
"No," answered Aragorn.  
  
"Well, here's what you do," said Jack, taking a flask of shot from the wall. "You take the cork off this contraption here, and pour some shot down the barrel (that's the little tube at the front), counting to about three, and then stop. Then, you take one of these – "removing a ball from his pocket – "and put it down the barrel. Try it."  
  
He handed Aragorn the ball and shot. Aragorn began pouring shot in, counting one...two...three. Then he stopped and put the ball in the barrel. It got stuck half way down.  
  
"It's stopped," he said.  
  
"Sometimes you'll have to poke it down," said Jack. "That's what this is for," passing him a ramrod. Aragorn took it and pushed the ball down to the bottom.  
  
"Very good," said Jack. "Now, cock the hammer at the back there – "Aragorn did so, "- good, and now you – "  
  
BANG! Aragorn had pulled the trigger while the gun was pointed at the ceiling, causing a large amount of debris to fall down on the two of them. Aragorn, who had never fired a gun before, was amazed at even the small amount of kick back he received, throwing him to the floor. Upon hearing the gunshot, several of the prisoners panicked and brandished their weapons.  
  
Once dust and rock had stopped falling, Jack, who had ducked, stood up and pulled Aragorn to his feet.  
  
"Well," he said, "that's how you do it. Don't worry, we all make mistakes. But now we know not to shoot the gun unless we're pointing at an enemy soldier, don't we?"  
  
Several of the prisoners laughed appreciatively.  
  
"I wasn't expecting the force it pushed me back with," admitted Aragorn.  
  
"That's called kickback," said Jack. "Expect it, it'll happen every time. Right men, let's go."  
  
All of them armed and ready, they scuttled out of the doorway and began down the long corridor. At the end of this corridor was an iron door, which led outside. As they were walking down though, they heard voices from upstairs.  
  
"My God! Where are all the prisoners?" cried one.  
  
"Obstinée will have us skinned and gutted," said the second darkly.  
  
"What do we do? Where are they?" said the first.  
  
"The gunshot we heard came from down there. Let's go."  
  
"Oh, God no," said Jack. "Quickly, let's go!" He started ushering them along quickly, but they were still too slow. Two guards appeared on the staircase.  
  
"Oi! Get back here!" shouted the first one. When the prisoners kept moving, the two soldiers fired off two shots. They missed, but the prisoners continued to run, even faster than before. They could not shoot back; they had no shot or bullets.  
  
The lot of them reached the iron door, which Jack wrenched open, and flooded out of it. It was now night, and dark out. They were standing on a rock cliff, which fell into the ocean at the bottom. To their right they could see the beach below them, and even further in the distance the Swann Residence.  
  
"Quickly, this way!" said Jack, bringing them around the corner of a door. They lined themselves along the wall, all but Jack and Aragorn, who prepared for the attack.  
  
When the two guards bolted out the door, the two of them sprung into action. Aragorn landed the first guard a powerful punch in the nose and then a strong chop in the right of his neck. Jack grabbed the shoulders of the other, kicked him in the stomach and then smashed him into the wall. They were both knocked unconscious.  
  
"Nice punch," commented Jack.  
  
"We have to go fast," said Aragorn. "Soon, I presume, someone will find the prison deserted and inform someone of higher authority of it."  
  
"No, we can't go yet," said Jack. "Look at these dogs. They're tired, and won't go very far. We'll start going again tomorrow."  
  
"And today?"  
  
"We'll sleep here. I personally am tediously tired, and so am going to sleep. You can keep guard for us."  
  
"What?" protested Aragorn. "How dare you give me orders! I do not know why I've been following your command. I am a king, and deserve to be treated as such."  
  
"You've been following me because firstly, I am the only one out of us who knows the whys and wherefores of this place, and thirdly, you need me to get back."  
  
Aragorn could not argue this point any further, so he agreed. Jack passed him a musket, said "Sleep tight (some of us)," and with that tucked in. Aragorn was left sitting on the edge of the cliff, looking out over the sea and longing for Arwen and Eldarion. Would Eldarion be alive when Aragorn returned to Middle-earth? And a worse thought still – would he ever return to Middle-earth?  
  
Plagued by these thoughts, Aragorn settled in for a long night of restlessness. He sat upon the escarpment, a humiliated king bent upon the brink of despair.  
  
------------  
  
Oh, poor Aragorn. I'll update soon, I promise. 


	11. Escape From Obstinée

Well, I don't have much to say this time, so here we go.  
  
Sorry about the Aragorn angst in the last chapter. Just had to put it in.  
  
------------  
  
Aragorn was woken late the next morning by Jack roughly shaking him on the shoulder. It seemed he had fallen asleep in the night and rolled down into the nook the other prisoners were in. It was lucky he did – there were British soldiers standing around the area he had been sleeping, discussing the crisis.  
  
Obstinée was among them. Aragorn felt sure that if he and Jack were caught, they would be torn to pieces. His hands had never looked so strong before...  
  
"Aragorn," said Jack, "quick, wake up. We've got serious trouble here."  
  
"I see that," said Aragorn.  
  
"Any second now them soldiers is gonna come down here," said one of the pirates, "and catch us."  
  
"Exactly true," said Jack. "However, I do have a plan. This nook that we're all in runs all the way down this wall, right to the end. Near the end, however, it deepens into a sort of tunnel with no left wall. One at a time, we could funnel through this, and around that corner. They won't notice us.  
  
"Well, they might, but we'll have to risk it," he added as an afterthought. "Alright, why don't we go starting from the people closest to the end?"  
  
So the first person, a small, lizard-like man crept into the nook, and quietly shimmied through and down around the corner. He was not noticed. Then a slightly better-built man with no right arm went through. Still no one noticed him. Their last five prisoners went through after that, the man who had insulted Aragorn on the stairs last. Unfortunately this man had some trouble getting into the tunnel, and dropped his musket with a clatter which alerted the soldiers.  
  
They turned around to see Aragorn and Jack crouched there, pushing the man's musket to him in the tunnel.  
  
"Here! It's the prisoners!" shouted a soldier.  
  
"What 'ave we 'ere?" said Obstinée, eyes flicking from Aragorn to Jack. "Monsieur Turner, and Monsieur Sparrow? Escaped? Well we have ways of dealing with escapees."  
  
He began to laugh sneeringly. Aragorn stood, and walked over to Obstinée, looking him straight in the cruel eye. He held his fist up in front of him.  
  
"You see this ring?" he said, pointing to the silver ring on his finger. "It is very, very, hard."  
  
As Obstinée soon discovered; Aragorn punched him in the mouth with the greatest strength he could muster. When the man was on the ground, bleeding from his mouth, Aragorn drew Andúril from his scabbard, aimed a blow at Obstinée's neck and raised the sword, but was stopped by Jack, grabbing his wrists.  
  
"Aragorn, no," he said. "Normally I'd tell you just to kill the bastard, but that would drop you even further in it than you're in it already. Besides, it isn't the opportune moment. Let's go."  
  
Aragorn did not wish to give up this opportunity, but he put the sword back in the scabbard and followed Jack around the corner. They met up with the seven freed prisoners, on a long, thin ledge leading down into the beach.  
  
"What are you waiting for? If you wish to be caught, by all means stay, but I'm out of here," said Jack, and began herding them along like sheep. They needed no second telling, and began running down of their own accord.  
  
Behind them, they could hear Obstinée yelling, "What ees the matter with you fools? Follow them! Vite! vite!"  
  
Some of the soldiers at the top came running down after them, stopping at the ledge, and fired of a volley of three shots. Jack pointed his own pistol at the brick wall of the prison and fired. A section of bricks fell down right in front of the guards, who were knocked over.  
  
Aragorn, Jack, and the prisoners sped down the rest of the rock ledge onto the sandy beach. They did not stay long, for now soldiers in redcoats were coming from the main town to apprehend them. And men from the Navy were coming from across the beach.  
  
The escapees charged across the beach to the dock, pushing several bystanders over in their haste. As they did so, several musket balls sent up showers of sand, water, or splinters depending on where they hit. Just as they had gone over the ramp onto the nearest dock, there was the sound of an explosion from behind them and it went up in pieces.  
  
Another explosion sounded and they received a brief, fleeting glimpse of a cannonball plunging through the dead centre of the wharf, sending up an array of water and sharp wood (most of which fortunately went down).  
  
"Oh God, they're firing the cannons at us," said Jack exasperatedly. Aragorn looked up to the prison. He could see no cannons at first glance, but then he looked to the roof, where two of the three cannons there were smoking.  
  
"Can't they bloody leave us in peace?" cried Jack, jumping onto the nearest ship and busied himself with a cannon. "Aragorn! Give me a hand, will you?"  
  
Aragorn sprang onto the ship as well, and followed Jack over to the gun.  
  
"Help me lift this into the cannon," the pirate said, and Aragorn helped him to lift a heavy, lead ball and put it down the barrel of the gun, to a purpose Aragorn could not think. Surely nothing could shoot something of that size and weight?  
  
Jack then took a match from his pocket and struck it on one of his teeth, aimed the cannon, and then lit the fuse.  
  
"I advise you to let go," shouted Jack, stepping back from the cannon, and Aragorn did the same. The fuse burned down...three...two...one – BOOM! The cannonball could be seen for a split second flying from the cannon, but then was gone. The wall of the prison that faced them took on a heavy explosion right at the top, where one of the smoking cannons was positioned exactly. The men manning it flew backwards as the gun was blasted down onto the escarpment, which it smashed, and then into the water.  
  
"Good shot," said Aragorn.  
  
"Thank you," replied Jack. "Oh no - "  
  
For an explosion had just sounded off, and the hull of the ship was breached and the explosion tore up the floor beneath Aragorn and Jack. Aragorn managed to hang on to the splintered edge of the hole, but Jack had been thrown upward and now hung by his arms on the mast.  
  
"Aragorn, get off the – "he started, but then something tore through the stem of the mast. It toppled over, sending Jack falling through the hole in the deck and into the flooding hull.  
  
Aragorn was horrified. There was a scream from the prison and he looked up to see a cannoneer being thrown from his post, off the prison and into the water.  
  
"Do not destroy the sheeps! Fools!" the man's voice could faintly be heard as he took over the cannon. It was Obstinée. The foul man – throwing his own men over. He deserved nothing short of what justice could give him.  
  
"Aragorn! Over here!" came another voice from out in the bay. Aragorn looked up to see a ship coming towards him, a man in a navy uniform piloting and a man in a redcoat at the bow. He gave one last look at the hull which was nearly filled with water now, and took to the dock.  
  
He ran to the end, the ship drawing nearer, and leapt onto the side, grasping two portholes that the muzzles of cannons jutted through. A rope was let down, which he clambered onto, and was pulled up onto the deck.  
  
The man in the redcoat had pulled him up. He took off his bicorn to reveal an untidy head of brown hair, with a neat moustache to match.  
  
"Will," said Aragorn breathlessly. "Thank you."  
  
"Where's Jack?" he asked.  
  
"In that ship there," said Aragorn, nodding towards the now almost sunken ship.  
  
* * *  
  
Jack gasped for air above the surface of the water, managed to grasp a deep breath and plunged under the surface of the water again. He swam down to where the cannonball had struck, and was still stuck.  
  
'At least the water's warm,' thought Jack, desperately prying at the cannonball with his fingers. It would not budge. It was tight, so Jack was mystified as to how water had gotten in. His guess was that the ship had rocked drastically when it was hit, and water came in through the portholes. 'Just my luck enough water gets in to sink this dinosaur,' he thought bitterly.  
  
But then he thought, why didn't he just wait until there was enough water he could climb out of the hole in the floor – his roof. He splashed at the surface, trying to grab the edge of the hole, and – yes! he had it! There was quite the assortment of splinters now thrust into his hand, however.  
  
Just then, the ship gave an almighty lurch and the bow sunk down lower. There was the sound of something rolling on the deck above him, and then a full barrel ran over his poor fingers and crammed itself into the hole. Jack roared in pain and frustration and pulled his hands out. There would be no use trying to push it out.  
  
Now he was in very deep trouble, quite literally. The ship was nearly full of seawater, he had no means of escape through the deck, and the cannonball was still blocking his only other exit.  
  
'Come on, move!" he thought desperately, still trying to free the lead ball. Just then, it shifted, and rolled from the hole it was stuck in and plummeted to the floor of the cove.  
  
Jack tried to get through the hole, but became stuck halfway through. The pushed at the ship desperately, hurting his hips, but he did not move for a few seconds, and when he did, the wood tore long gashes in his legs.  
  
His lungs on fire, he shot desperately up to the top of the water.  
  
* * *  
  
The last of the seven escaped prisoners climbed up the rope and onto the deck of the ship. Will helped him to his feet. Elizabeth was at the wheel, and Aragorn was standing guard over the prisoners. Now all they needed was Jack.  
  
Chances looked grim for him, though. All that was visible of the ship he had fallen into was the tip of the mast and the railings at the stern.  
  
There was another explosion and a cannonball blasted into the water beside the ship that they were on. Soldiers in navy uniforms and redcoats were thundering down the dock. Elizabeth turned the wheel quickly and they moved slightly away from the end, so the soldiers could not climb aboard. If Jack did not come soon, they would have to leave him.  
  
Just then, there was a splash and a spluttering for air. Jack had come out of the water and was thrashing towards the ship.  
  
"Throw down the rope!" cried Will, and Aragorn hurried over to see what it was. Jack was indeed swimming towards the ship.  
  
"Throw me a bloody rope!" he shouted. He plunged under the surface of the water again. Will and Aragorn threw down the same rope that had pulled Aragorn and the prisoners onto the boat over the side yet again.  
  
Jack broke the surface and took a firm grip on the rope. "Pull me up!" he cried, and Will and Aragorn wasted no time in doing so.  
  
But halfway up the weight on the rope was doubled and the two men dropped it a few inches in surprise. They looked down to see Constable Obstinée clutching Jack's left leg, clawing at it with his knife-like nails.  
  
"Arrgh!" roared Jack. "Geroff, you mad frog!"  
  
"You and Turner are going to ze gallows, Sparrow!" the constable roared back.  
  
"Will! Aragorn! Pull me up, fast!" Jack shouted up at them. Aragorn and Will pulled with immense difficulty at the rope, with two people on it.  
  
Grapnels began to fly up and take hold of the railings of the ship. Soldiers climbed up these and began pouring onto the ships. The escaped prisoners immediately went to arms. Some dropped muskets and drew swords, and some kept the muskets and charged with bayonets.  
  
Some of the soldiers were knocked over and off the ship, others jumped off in fear of the musket charge. Others, who hadn't gotten onto the ship yet, had their ropes cut and they fell into the cove. But there were some who managed to get onto the ship and begin fencing.  
  
Jack and Obstinée were still on the rope, both struggling. Jack, who was now near the top, was struggling to take Will's hand, and Obstinée was determined to keep him from doing so.  
  
An inaccurate grapnel flew and hit the hull, bounced off, and stuck deep into Obstinée's right shoulder. He shrieked with pain and released his grip with his feet. The rope was tugged straight out of Will's and Aragorn's hands, and Jack and Obstinée plummeted down.  
  
As Aragorn reached for the rope, it snapped taut and the force of this caused Obstinée to let go of Jack's leg and fall head over heels into the briny seawater.  
  
Jack laughed in triumph. "Bit wet, Mister Obstinée?" he jeered. Obstinée, who had come to the top, thrashed for the Jack's leg again, but did not find it. Will and Aragorn had started pulling again, and within moments Jack was at the top. They pulled the end of the rope up with him, and were pleased to find that there was no Mr Obstinée clinging to it.  
  
"Alright, Jack?" asked Will.  
  
"Fine," he replied. "Couldn't say the same thing about him, though."  
  
Aragorn and Will laughed.  
  
"Dispoas'd! Take us out!" cried Will, obviously to Elizabeth. She turned the wheel and began to bring them out of the harbour.  
  
"Dispoas'd?" said Jack.  
  
"Elizabeth," said Will quietly. "False identity."  
  
"Ah, gotcha," said Jack brightly. Then, at the soldiers on the dock, he shouted, "Thank you for the ship, everyone! And thank you for the hospitality, Mister Obstinée, but I think I much prefer that of Mister Munditieson."  
  
Obstinée was climbing up the wooden ladder onto the dock and cursed after him.  
  
"Jack?" said Will, holding a cannonball.  
  
"Ah, thank you," said Jack, and placed it in the cannon. He lit the fuse, waited three seconds, and then the end of the dock blasted to pieces. Soldiers were thrown into the water, and the unfortunate Obstinée, who had just stood up, also was catapulted into the bay. None of them was seriously injured.  
  
Aragorn, Jack, and Will laughed loudly, and shook hands.  
  
"Now, who are these?" said Jack, walking over to where the few soldiers brave enough to stay and fight were being held up by prisoners with unloaded muskets.  
  
"Prisoners of war, like," said the lizard-like man evilly.  
  
"What are you afraid of - those muskets aren't loaded," said Aragorn. The soldiers turned their heads in his direction.  
  
"That's crazy talk!" said Jack. "Don't listen to him!"  
  
"Shall we – "started the man without front teeth.  
  
"No, no," interrupted Jack. "We'll be lenient. Take that boat there and trouble us no more," he said to the soldiers, pointing to a lifeboat. The soldiers happily scrabbled into it in fear.  
  
"Mind the hole in the bottom," said the pirate, walking over to it.  
  
"The what?" said one of the men, as Jack drew his sword and cut through the rope holding it in one stroke. The boat fell down into the water.  
  
"See you next fall," Jack called down, as water began to fill the boat through a large hole in the bottom. The men wisely abandoned the vessel.  
  
Jack walked up to the wheel and took Elizabeth's blue navy hat off her head.  
  
"Thanks a lot, Lizzy darling," he said, putting his arm around her shoulders. "Why don't you let me take the wheel now?"  
  
"Alright Jack, you can probably steer better than I can," Elizabeth replied.  
  
Jack smiled and took control.  
  
-------------  
  
Whew! That was a *long* chapter. Lots of action there. I'll get next chapter up soon again. 


	12. Part 2: The Most Ferocious Pirate

Hooray! They escaped! Don't worry, you'll see more of the bad guys. It's not going to get boring from here. Thanks pIPPINpIRATE, reviews (good ones) always help!  
  
And, yes, I've finished Part 1 now, as I said last chapter.  
  
-------------  
  
Part 2  
  
Dark sails flew in the wind and the Jolly Roger sailed high above, atop the mast. The peeling black-painted wood on the side of the hull glistened with seawater. 'The Fell Strike' cut through the water of the open ocean with ease, like a hot knife through butter.  
  
And at the top of the mast, in the small crow's nest, stood a man. A sinister and despicable man, a foul and evil man, a filthy rich man. This was Donovan Machiavel, the most terrifying and ferocious pirate in the world. He was rich for the simple reason that he had sacked and looted more towns than any other pirate in history. His cutlass was famous for its deadly throat-slash, and his pistol was famous for its shot-between-the- eyes. His right eye was patched, but this scarcely made him less capable of great damage in battle.  
  
Donovan, sad to say, was a great friend of Jack Sparrow. He wondered what had become of the Good Pirate (as Jack was known to pirates then) since he was sentenced to hanging. Donovan had heard talk that he had escaped, and no rumours were spread to contradict this, so he was led to believe Captain Jack Sparrow was still out there.  
  
The two had a rather different way of running their crews. Jack did so more with humour than anything else. But Donovan was a true believer that fear was the greatest power, not kindness. His men carried out their orders through terror of flogging, the plank, flagellation, flaying, thumbscrews, and Donovanian Suspension. The perpetrator was hung by his ankles over the side of the ship and left there for a certain amount of time, depending on the crime. This was one of Donovan's personal inventions, and he enjoyed doing it very much. As you can see, he was a terrible man.  
  
His ship was faster than any ship of the Fleet, with double the firepower of most. The underside of the spar on the bow was armed with large blades for this purpose: if engaged closely with an enemy vessel, a rope could be pulled to lift the spar up, and then let go, and the blade would cleave into the enemy's ship. He had crafted a 'Ship Grenade', a simple grenade with spikes jutting out of it, so that it would be lodged in the enemy ship when thrown, until the fuse ran down.  
  
Donovan Machiavel was truly a master and genius of naval warfare.  
  
Soon this would be put to good use.  
  
"Captain!" cried a voice from below. "Captain Machiavel!"  
  
Donovan turned his scarred but handsome face down to the deck. The man who had called him was at the wheel, motioning him to come down.  
  
"What is it, Lieutenant?" he barked in answer.  
  
"Could you come down here, for a moment, sir? You should see something!"  
  
Without answer, Donovan took hold of the coil of rope sitting in the crow's nest and threw the end down to the deck, tying the other end of the rope to the mast. Then he grasped the rope and slid smoothly down to the deck, in between the toiling crewmen. He walked magnificently, his jewels and necklaces glittering in the sun of the Caribbean. He went up the wooden staircase to the wheel.  
  
"This had better be important, Lieutenant Snaiyk," the captain said dangerously.  
  
"Be very important, Captain," Snaiyk answered. Lieutenant Snaiyk was a weaselly man with long, black, wiry hair and a greasy, oily nature towards Donovan. His right eye was hazel and his left was a bilious green.  
  
"There be a British ship comin' up on the port, from the stern. It looks not very powerful, but it's pretty damn fast."  
  
"Hang on," said Donovan, walking to the stern. He produced a brazen gold spyglass and made a swift movement with his hand, so that it came to full length. He put it to his eye and scanned the horizon. His vision fell upon a masterly ship with white sails, bearing a British flag. It had few cannons, but was slim and long, and came with great speed through the ocean.  
  
"We can take them," said Donovan. "We've got twice their firepower, our ship grenades, and the Bladespar. I'm quite willing to test that out, I assure you."  
  
"What suggest you, sir?" asked Snaiyk.  
  
"Turn us around," said Donovan. "We're going after it. There's nothing to it. We should take it down in a couple of minutes."  
  
And so they did. They turned and sailed towards the British vessel, named 'The Dart', and challenged it. Donovan put his mouth to a bronze horn mounted on the railing of the ship and blew a long, rumbling sound from it. British trumpets sounded from their assailant.  
  
"Load the cannons and man them!" Donovan shouted to the deck. "Ready the ship grenades! Prepare the Bladespar!"  
  
All these things were done quickly. Each pair of pirates manning each cannon slid a cannonball into their muzzle and piled ship grenades and extra cannonballs beside them.  
  
"No quarter!" roared Donovan as the two ships slowed, side by side. "Fire!"  
  
The same order was issued from the British ship. Each of the cannons positioned to attack was fired. Several of Donovan's missed, for The Dart did not have a deep hull. Most of the British cannons struck the Fell Strike with great power.  
  
"Ship grenades!" commanded Donovan, and lit one himself and threw it. As soon as it hit the deck of The Dart it was lodged in the wood. When it exploded, it blasted a great hole. The pairs of cannoneers did the same, and soon The Dart was covered in ship grenades. The next second, The Dart was no longer a ship, so much as a mass of broken wood and sinking cannons and cannonballs.  
  
"Well fought, men!" said Donovan triumphantly, as he returned to the mast. "Repair whatever is possible!" he said before climbing the rungs on the mast and clambering back into the crow's nest.  
  
He watched as the last remnants of his latest (in two ways) enemy sunk to the bottom of the sea, or else drifted off to the open ocean.  
  
Donovan Machiavel had never lost a sea-battle in his life, and remained certain that he never would.  
  
--------------  
  
Ooooooh! That evil Donovan is...well, evil! Nasty bugger. Sorry about the brief delay in getting this chapter up. 


	13. Ship and Ship

I apologize for the recent delays in my chapter-uppage. I don't have much to say today, so, here goes.  
  
---------  
  
The Navis Fugacis sailed smoothly through the open water of the Caribbean Sea. The white masts rippled in the wind, the British flag whistled as it flapped wildly, and the spar pointed north. Jack Sparrow stood at the wheel, not doing an awful lot with it, as they were cruising through open water.  
  
The sound of cutlasses chinking together was music to Aragorn's ears, for it reminded him of the Middle-earth that he belonged to. He frequently drew his own sword and practiced thrusting, cutting, and blocking with it, though not against other people's swords; they would most definitely break. Instead, Will Turner would take a cannon ramrod and help Aragorn. Will turned out to be an excellent swordsman.  
  
Elizabeth Swann spent most of her time in the cabin or crow's nest, depending on where there were no pirates at that time. If there were pirates at both, she would take refuge with Jack. She did not like the way that the prisoners looked at her. Almost hungrily, it was.  
  
Nothing of interest to their cause happened until two days out to sea. Sickle, the lizard-like man, was keeping a lookout on the mast of the ship, when he suddenly called out to Jack that there was a ship approaching from the starboard side. Jack left the wheel for a moment to look out. There was indeed a ship approaching. It was not a British ship – it looked evil. It was flying a Jolly Roger flag, and carried about twice their firepower.  
  
"It's Donovan," said Jack.  
  
"Who?" asked Aragorn.  
  
"Donovan," repeated Jack. "Donovan Machiavel. The worst man, but best pirate, you'll ever find sailing these waters. Or any waters for that matter."  
  
"He won't attack us though," said Aragorn. "I mean, we're pirates as well."  
  
"It doesn't matter what they are, as long as they've got less firepower than he does," said Jack, "he'll attack them anyway. Besides, we're all dressed up here like Britons, they'll hold a bit more of a grudge for that. No, we're in danger here, unless I can show him it's me."  
  
"You? What would that matter?"  
  
"I'm one of his best mates. I've helped him out of a lot of trouble. Unless he's lost all sense of honour completely, he won't attack me. I'm taking one of the boats and going to talk with him."  
  
"Who will take the wheel?"  
  
"Elizabeth will. Elizabeth! Can you come and take the wheel for me, darling? Thanks very much."  
  
When Elizabeth came and took over command of the wooden steering wheel, Jack walked down the staircase onto the main deck. He stopped Aragorn, and said to him, "Aragorn, keep a sharp eye over Liz for me, alright? Crew's a bit – ahem, partial – to her, savvy?"  
  
"I will," answered Aragorn valiantly.  
  
"Good," said Jack. "I'll be back before you can say...discombobulation. Alright?"  
  
Aragorn nodded his head, disturbing his long, dark hair. Jack swaggered over to the side of the ship where a lifeboat lay, ready to be taken. He boarded the boat and a couple of crewmembers slowly and gently let it down to the salty water.  
  
Jack placed his oars in the water and rowed, watching the Navis Fugacis get further and further away. He looked behind him every few moments to see how close he was to the Fell Strike, Donovan's ship.  
  
After five minutes of rowing, he came up to he side of the ship. It was coated with peeling, black paint. The spar at the bow of the ship had a deadly selection of razor sharp blades on the bottom. The words 'The Fell Strike' were painted near the top of the hull in red paint which seemed to have run when painted on. It horribly resembled blood.  
  
Jack suddenly looked up. Four pirates were looking down at him, pointing aimed pistols.  
  
"Fire!" squawked one. Four round bullets slammed into the wood of the boat and either lodged there or went straight through.  
  
"Hang on, I'm a guest here!" shouted Jack. They loaded their pistols and fired off another volley. Water began to seep in the bottom of the boat. Jack fired his own pistol and blew the hat off the leader.  
  
"Look, perhaps we started off on the wrong foot," said Jack. "Whoops," he added stupidly, noting the leader's wooden excuse for a left leg. "Sorry, my mistake!"  
  
"Shoot him, men," said the leader angrily.  
  
"Hey, hey, don't put your foot in your mouth. Damn! Sorry! Sorry about - oh dear God."  
  
A couple of the pirates had just wheeled a cannon over. They were proceeding to load a cannonball into it and dump some powder in. Then they aimed the cannon downwards. Jack jumped onto the plank across the boat, as water had begun to go through his boots.  
  
"Come on, we can all be friends!" Jack said.  
  
It was the wrong thing to say. The pirates fired the cannon off. The cannonball blasted most of the small boat to shards. The oars broke asunder and flew everywhere, the anchor sank, and pieces of the boat scattered. The pirates on the ship hooted and cheered.  
  
Now you're probably wondering what became of Jack in this mess? Well, here's what happened. The cannonball struck near the bow of the boat, and Jack was standing near the stern. The impact catapulted Jack in the air, sending him over the railing and landing on the deck with a thud.  
  
"Ouch," he grunted.  
  
The hammer of a gun cocked behind his head. He rolled over onto his back and stared down the barrel of a loaded pistol, being held by a lanky man with slitlike nostrils. He had one brown eye and one green, and long, black hair. He looked like he enjoyed his job very much.  
  
"Morning," said Jack pleasantly and smiled hopefully. "Nice day, isn't it?"  
  
The pirate thrust the pistol forward an inch in warning. Jack eyed it warily, and plugged the end of the barrel with his finger. "Dangerous weapon, that," he noted.  
  
"Give me one good reason to shoot you, I'll shoot you," hissed the man. "Give me one good reason not to shoot you, I'll still shoot you. Keep your mouth shut, we'll think of somethings else."  
  
"What've you got there, Snaiyk?" said a gruff voice from behind the man. He turned and said, "Prisoner, Captain. From the British ship over there. Tried to sneak aboard, but we caught 'im. We'll have him dealt with, don't worry, Captain Machiavel, sir."  
  
"Machiavel?" said Jack in surprise. "Donovan Machiavel?"  
  
"You've no right to say 'is name," Snaiyk hissed back.  
  
"Oi, Don! It's me, your old mucker!" said Jack. "Captain Jack!"  
  
A man with a rough but handsome face pushed past Snaiyk to get a better look.  
  
"Sparrow?" he said in astonishment.  
  
"The one and only," said Jack.  
  
"Let him stand, Snaiyk!" barked Machiavel. Snaiyk hastened to uncock the pistol and step back. Jack got to his feet immediately.  
  
"Captain Jack Sparrow, at your service, sir," said Jack.  
  
"Well, well, well," said Machiavel. "So it's true: you escaped the noose?"  
  
"Apparently," answered Jack. "Here I am, alive and fresh as...fresh fruit."  
  
Machiavel laughed a deep, evil sort of laugh. Jack recognized it as friendly, though, and not hostile.  
  
"Welcome aboard the Fell Strike," said Machiavel, patting Jack on the shoulder.  
  
-----------  
  
Jack's on a ship of brutal pirates??? Dun-dun-DUN! What will happen next? You'll find out soon, I promise. 


	14. Revelations

Man, I'm taking a long time with my chapters! Sorry.  
  
------------  
  
Donovan and Jack walked across the deck of the ship. They moved past the bloodstained and bloodthirsty pirates, across the floor of dark wood to the cabin.  
  
"Where are we going?" asked Jack nervously.  
  
"To the cabin," answered Donovan. "We're going to have a little chat."  
  
"Ah, I see," said Jack. He was extremely uncomfortable going into the cabin where there were probably dozens of pirates, all armed and ready to cut his throat – or belly.  
  
"How many of your good men are in there?"  
  
"Oh, about twenty odd buccaneers, I reckon. We're going to my personal cabin, so no one will be in there."  
  
"Well, that's a relief," said Jack, not relieved at all that they were going to the Captain's Cabin.  
  
Donovan opened the door to reveal a scene of chaos. The pirates who had spare time were spending it drinking, gambling, fighting, yelling, and other drunken activities. A gunshot went off and one pirate's kneecap bent backwards bloodily. Jack grimaced.  
  
"Bit like Tortuga, innit?" he said.  
  
"Oh, yes," said Donovan. "I remember Tortuga. I very nearly ransacked the entire thing when I was there."  
  
"What stopped you?" asked Jack.  
  
"Well, by the time we were half done, we'd almost got too much gold already to carry back so we figured we'd leave it at that," replied Donovan.  
  
"Ah."  
  
"Go in, go in."  
  
And Jack, drawing his sword as he went, walked into the cabin. Donovan followed, slamming the door behind him.  
  
* * *  
  
"Oh, God," said Aragorn, looking at the pirate ship through a spyglass.  
  
"What is it?" asked Will.  
  
"Jack's gone inside," said Aragorn. "Inside the cabin. It was bad enough on the deck, but at least then we could see him."  
  
"He's in dead trouble," said Will seriously.  
  
"If he doesn't hurry out soon, he'll be in literally dead trouble," answered Aragorn.  
  
"Come on, we have to do something," said Elizabeth. She began to turn the wheel to the starboard.  
  
* * *  
  
On the deck of the Fell Strike, two pirates leaned against the railing on the port side of the deck. One was sixty-seven, with white hair and his right eye slowly going blind. The other was his grandson, who was nineteen years old with brown hair and blue eyes. His shirt was open down the chest to the navel.  
  
"Oi, why aren't we shootin' that ship?" said the old man.  
  
"Because we've got to wait," replied the boy. "We have to wait until Donovan gives the orders."  
  
"Why's'nt he givin' us the orders now, Harry?" asked the man. "I want to fire a cannon."  
  
"I don't know," replied Harry. "We'll get to, Grandad, don' worry."  
  
They sat there for a moment, not taking their eyes off the ship. The Grandad noticed something.  
  
"Does that ship look like it's getting a bit – closer?"  
  
* * *  
  
"Sit down, Jack."  
  
"That's Captain Jack." The Good Pirate sat down in a spiky wooden chair beside the desk in Donovan's cabin. The desk had a map of the Caribbean pinned to it with a Mayan dagger. Donovan did not sit, but moved over to a drinks cabinet beside his bed. He opened the cabinet.  
  
"Well, what would you like to drink, Captain Jack?" he said, showing him the selection. "I have most drinks you can think of."  
  
"Mostly stolen, I presume?"  
  
"Yes, yes, or smuggled," said Donovan off-handedly. "Sometimes both."  
  
"Nothing for me, thanks," said Jack. He wasn't fool enough to drink from a pirate's stores.  
  
"Come on, we're old friends. Have a drink, as a reunion toast."  
  
"I'm not terribly – "He stopped seeing Donovan casually gripping the hilt of his cutlass. "Rum," he said quickly.  
  
"Plenty of that lying around," replied Donovan, relinquishing his sword and extracting two bottles of rum, a round one and a square one. He examined the two and then passed the square bottle to Jack.  
  
"Cheers," he replied. He raised the bottle cautiously to his lips and instead of drinking, sniffed it. It smelled rather peculiar, for rum...was it foreign?  
  
"What is it?" asked Donovan suspiciously, heartily taking a swig from his bottle.  
  
"Your rum is a different colour than mine," said Jack, thinking quickly.  
  
"Different brands, aren't they?" said Donovan.  
  
"Are they from different places?" asked Jack.  
  
"No, both Cuban," said Donovan.  
  
Jack sniffed it again. It did not smell Cuban.  
  
"This rum is poisoned," he said, putting the bottle down slowly.  
  
Donovan's mouth contorted into a wide, twisted grin, revealing a set of unusually white (in that day) teeth and several golden ones.  
  
"You've still got that brain on you, I see, Jack," he said evilly.  
  
"Have you got a screw loose?" said Jack.  
  
"No, no, or I would have just taken you head on, sword to sword," answered Donovan. "I know your skill is in that area."  
  
Jack jumped onto the desk and drew his sword, only there was no sword. Donovan extracted it from under his desk, dangling it by the guard from his right forefinger.  
  
"My skills, on the other hand," he said, "are in other areas."  
  
"Years on the sea must have affected your brain," retorted Jack. "Why are you trying to poison me, your mate?"  
  
"I have no friendship with those who travel amongst the British Navy," said Donovan. "If there is one thing I do not abide it is a pirate allying with the Limeys. It is to us as treason is to them."  
  
Jack made a swipe for his sword, but Donovan whipped it around and carved a slice in his arm. Jack stumbled backwards off the desk.  
  
"You don't understand," he said, now very worried. "I'm not allied with them, I commandeered their ship."  
  
"A likely story. Why, when you have your own, fast, powerful ship to use? No, as far as I'm concerned, you are nothing more than an insect. And you can be squashed as one."  
  
He raised Jack's sword to shoulder height and pointed it, backing Jack into the wall of the cabin. Jack turned the handle of the door and pulled, but it was bolted shut.  
  
"So here ends the infamous Jack Sparrow, impaled on his own sword," said Donovan. He put the sword to Jack's throat.  
  
Suddenly the whole ship shook with such force that Donovan was almost thrown off balance. Taking advantage of the moment, Jack seized his sword by the blade and brought it back to himself. With no notice of the gash he now had in his palm, he flipped the hilt into his hand and plunged the blade into Donovan's stomach. The pirate gave a roar of fury and toppled backwards, knocking his desk over and falling onto the floor with it.  
  
Jack, disturbed at what he just did, slid his sword back into his belt. He undid the bolt on the door and took off through it. There was one pirate left in the cabin. He turned to look at Jack.  
  
"Where is the captain?" he demanded.  
  
"He fell down," said Jack. He took his pistol out of his belt and cocked it.  
  
"I'll take you single-handed, Sparrow!" said the pirate. Jack pulled the trigger and shot him down where he stood.  
  
"Brilliant fight you put up there," said Jack. He hurried to the door and tore out to the deck.  
  
------------  
  
You want to get some ointment on that, Donovan; it could get infected. Hehehe...I'm so slow at getting chapters up. 


	15. Escape from the Fell Strike

Hello. It seems I broke my promise. This took a while to upload as well. Sorry about that. I have punished myself by charging headlong into a pop vending machine.  
  
-----------  
  
The Navis Fugacis sliced cleanly through the seawater with the straightness of a flying arrow. It ploughed straight on towards Fell Strike. Jack was in trouble; they had to save him.  
  
"Why don't we shoot it with the cannons?" asked Aragorn.  
  
"There's too much risk it will sink the ship," said Elizabeth. "We don't want that, we just want him off safely."  
  
"This is truly a time of technology, unless it is magic?" said Aragorn.  
  
"No, no, no magic," said Will. "Magic does not exist. It is pure technology."  
  
"Magic does not exist? You have truly forgotten?"  
  
"This is not the time!"  
  
They were now fifty yards away from the enemy ship.  
  
"To arms!" commanded Will.  
  
"Qualme na i kotumo!" roared Aragorn, meaning "Death to the ememy!"  
  
"No quarter!" cried Elizabeth.  
  
There was much clicking as Aragorn, Will, and the rest of the crew cocked their pistols and stuffed bullets and powder into them. They held them double-handed, ready to attack.  
  
"Steady!" ordered Will. Then, "FIRE!"  
  
Nine gunshots went off and nine pistol balls rocketed towards the Fell Strike. Six of the dozens of crewmen on the ship fell, but three bullets struck the hull. One of the six men that were hit was the grandad mentioned in the previous chapter. He now was slumped on the floor, leaning up against the railing. The bullet had punctured his midriff and pierced his only remaining kidney. He was bleeding heavily and clutched his wound in pain. Harry was bent beside him, choking back tears to defend his honour.  
  
"Grandad, don' die," he pleaded. "Let me get the bullet out."  
  
"Leave it in, you plonker, an' let me die," he replied hoarsely. "Takin' it out will make it worse."  
  
"Grandad, don't die!" said Harry.  
  
"Just promise you won't rest until everyone on that there ship is dead," he said. "Kill them all, and let the devil take 'em!"  
  
The effort he put into his last statement was too much for his body. He gagged, blood ran in a thin stream from the right side of his mouth, and he fell limp. Harry's blood boiled with fury. The last of his family was dead. He swore then to have vengeance.  
  
Meanwhile, the Navis Fugacis was drawing ominously nearer. The wind was on its side, giving it the extra speed needed for their plan. They were a mere twenty yards away.  
  
"Draw swords!" shouted Will, and the crewmen hastened to brandish their rapiers and or cutlasses. Will's shining, handsome rapier came whistling through the air, and Aragorn's magical, Elven blade flew from the scabbard in his left hand. He grasped it with both hands and held it before his face.  
  
"Show no mercy!" he commanded powerfully.  
  
Countless shots rang out from the pirate ship, and bullets pounded into many places on the hull. One of their crewmen was hit in the breast and fell dead on the deck straightaway.  
  
They were ten yards away.  
  
"Ready!" cried Will.  
  
Five yards. The bowsprit of the Navis Fugacis actually stroked the railing of the Fell Strike.  
  
"Now!" shouted Elizabeth.  
  
Then the Navis Fugacis' bow slammed headlong into the side of the Fell Strike, disturbing both ships with almost seismic force. Seawater careened onto the vessels, drenching most of the men on deck to the bone.  
  
"Attack!" bellowed Will.  
  
"Elendil!" roared Aragorn. He was the first to move, charging forward with such a great uproar of courage in his heart as had not been seen since the War of the Ring. Will and their squalid crew were not far behind, their swords raised high in the air and shrieking battle cries. The pirates on the enemy ship did the same.  
  
Aragorn ran to the front and took a great leap onto the Fell Strike. He was filled with terror for a split second at the sight of so many horrid pirates rushing towards him at once. Then he imagined the teeming masses of Uruk-Hai at Helm's Deep, and the even greater masses of Orcs at the Siege of Gondor. Then into his head came Arwen's beautiful visage, and Eldarion's idolizing, admiring face, and he could not bear to let them down. All these came to him in a fraction of a second, before the flame in the heart of the Dúnedain was rekindled and he took to battle.  
  
A vicious pirate with long, scraggly hair was bare feet away from him, swinging his sword like a lunatic. Aragorn drew back his much more powerful sword and swung it sideways, hitting the pirate in the side and slicing him in two. His rage carried him for the next few moments, as six more pirates assaulted him with their cutlasses swinging. He stabbed three in the stomach, split one's head down the middle, and slashed two in the side. Red blood was running down the groove in Andúril's centre like a river.  
  
It was only when Will and the crew also leapt from the Navis Fugacis and onto the Fell Strike that Aragorn's sense returned to him. Instead of random attacking, he fought with precision and strategy. Will proved to be a brilliant fighter with rapiers. The crew was inexperienced and untalented, save in the field of charging forth and killing all in their path.  
  
"Up above!" shouted on of their crewmen. Aragorn's head snapped upwards, to see pirates clinging to the ship's riggings or standing on the horizontal spars of the mast. The latter were taking ropes in hand and swinging down into battle. Three swooped down and raked the ground with their cutlasses. Only one man was killed, and that was fortunately one of the enemy's troops anyhow.  
  
One of the pirates was swinging towards him. He gathered speed and let go of the rope. He flew forward, pointing his feeble sword at Aragorn. The King swung Andúril upwards and parried the pirate's sword away, and the pirate went with it. He soared over the railing, hit the hull of the Navis Fugacis and fell into the sea.  
  
Aragorn charged towards the cabin. He had to get to Jack. He reached for the doorknob when the door swung open and hit him square in the nose. He stumbled, the bridge of his nose throbbing with pain, and looked to see who it was. It was Jack.  
  
"What's going on?" he said thickly. "What's the bloody point of coming all the way over here?"  
  
"I was coming to rescue you," answered Aragorn, nettled.  
  
"I needed no rescuing, thank you," said Jack. "Bloody Hell, let's get out of here, and – WILLIAM!"  
  
Aragorn looked around to see Will battling a pirate, unknowing that there was another swinging to him on a rope from behind. Without thinking, Aragorn whipped his pistol from his belt and fired. The pirate on the rope flew off ungracefully sideways, crumpling to the deck in a fetal position. Will stabbed his pirate in the chest and ran over to join Aragorn and Jack.  
  
"Jack! You're alright!" he said.  
  
"Apparently," replied Jack. "Quick, let's go! Where's the rest of the crew?"  
  
"Dead," answered Will grimly. "These men have no regard for Parley."  
  
"But you, of course, gave them a good share of it" said Jack fairly. "Let's get out of here quick, there's a mob of angry pirates coming towards us."  
  
Jack and Will began running back to the spot where the Navis Fugacis could be reached. Aragorn ran as well, but instead of leaping straight on, stayed back and slew one last enemy.  
  
At least, what he believed was to be one last enemy. He turned to board his ship, and saw that it had already started moving. It was out of his reach.  
  
"Come back!" he shouted after them. He felt many pairs of pirate hands grasp his arms and shoulders and begin pulling him backwards. "Get off of me!" he raged, trying to free his sword arm.  
  
"The captain will be pleased to see you," said one pirate nastily.  
  
"Unfortunately, the captain is already dead," said another voice. It was not one of the pirates' – it was Jack's. Their ship had returned and Jack was back on the Fell Strike, his sword out. He leapt at the pirates holding Aragorn, and they instantly released him. Quickly, Aragorn shot to his ship and leapt over the railing onto the deck. Jack came running back also, and grasped the bowsprit with both hands.  
  
"Go!" he commanded, and the ship began to move away. He was dangling over the water, but still the enemy pirates pursued him. One actually jumped to get him, but succeeded only in grabbing his belt for a second before slipping off into the water.  
  
"Goodbye, goodbye!" said Jack. "Sorry we couldn't stay longer, but something's come up! Perhaps next time!"  
  
And with that, the Navis Fugacis sailed away from the Fell Strike, leaving it in disarray.  
  
TBC... 


	16. To the Aztec City

"Well, that ought to waylay them for at least a day," said Jack carelessly, guiding the Navis Fugacis away from the now dismal Fell Strike. "It will take them a few hours to repair the damage, not to mention decide on a new captain."  
  
"What? Why?" asked Will.  
  
"What, didn't I tell you?" said Jack. "Sorry. Mind like a sieve. I personally dealt with Captain Machiavel. Well, I had no choice, did I?"  
  
"Well, that's good," said Will. "But when they do come after us again, they will be angrier, and we do not have a crew."  
  
"We'll have to find one then, won't we?" said Jack.  
  
They were now sailing into an area consumed with dense fog. They could only barely see each others' silhouettes through it as they got further and further through.  
  
"Is this safe?" asked Aragorn. "We might crash."  
  
"Don't worry, I have it all under control," said Jack. With that, he span the wheel to the left and let go. Elizabeth, Will, and Aragorn all nearly fell over in surprise.  
  
"What are you doing?" demanded Aragorn angrily.  
  
"I am trying to get us to a place where we can get a new crew," said Jack.  
  
"This doesn't seem very safe to me," said Will, brushing his moustache.  
  
"Not safe?" said Jack. He began bending over backwards laughing. Then he suddenly straightened up and said seriously, "'Course it isn't safe. But it's our only hope."  
  
"Couldn't we just go to Tortuga?" suggested Will.  
  
"Nah, the place will be teeming with British soldiers if I do," said Jack. "As soon as they get word I'm in Tortuga (and they will, they've got a few grasses there), they'll be round there for their pound of flesh quicker than the Aztecs.  
  
"Speaking of Aztecs, I should probably tell you about our crew," said Jack.  
  
"What do you mean?" asked Will nervously.  
  
"Well, technically speaking, we're not actually entering Aztec space," said Jack. "However, when I was last here, I discovered a group of them that had settled here."  
  
"No, they were wiped out a hundred years ago," said Elizabeth.  
  
"Well apparently a few of them escaped Cortez," said Jack. "They haven't built that much of a settlement up, but they do have a temple and a few houses."  
  
"Can we trust these Aztecs?" said Will. "They're bloodthirsty people. They practice human sacrifice!"  
  
"We probably can't trust them," said Jack. "Last time I only survived because I happened to have quite a store of gold on board and I was able to barter freedom."  
  
"Do we this time?" said Will.  
  
"Not as such," said Jack confidently. "However, we can persuade them with the idea that if they join us, they will be able to fight battle and spill blood again."  
  
"Will they buy that?" said Aragorn.  
  
"Don't know," said Jack.  
  
"Well, if they mean to sacrifice me," said Aragorn, drawing out Andùril, "they will have to put their own necks on the line."  
  
"Well, everyone in good spirits?" said Jack. "No worries, then."  
  
They sailed deep into the evening, the fog thinning, but the sky becoming darker. They were sailing through a very thin channel between two peninsulas of very thick jungle. The gnarled trees stretched their roots into the water. They even grew right on the inlet.  
  
Around them were the sounds of the jungle: parrots and toucans cawed in the foliage, occasionally a jaguar would snarl or roar. At one point a spider monkey leapt onto Jack's shoulder, filched his hat and made off into the jungle with it. Jack was most displeased.  
  
The jungle became darker, more foreboding as they moved on. And the river became faster and more turbulent. The going became rough.  
  
"Stop!" said Jack all of a sudden. "Drop the anchor!"  
  
Will and Aragorn laboured to throw the anchor overboard and the ship halted.  
  
"What is it, Jack?" asked Will.  
  
"There it is," said Jack.  
  
Aragorn, Will, and Elizabeth looked around.  
  
"I see nothing," said Aragorn.  
  
"To the left, just in front of us," said Jack.  
  
Aragorn walked up to the front of the ship and looked to the left. Will soon joined him.  
  
"I'll be damned," said Will.  
  
There was a very narrow gap leading through the jungle trees. It was long and treacherous, as there were many gnarly roots stretching across it. At the end, light was shining through the opening.  
  
"That is where we are going," said Jack, coming down from the wheel. "Elizabeth darling, you'd better stay and hold the fort, so to speak. Everyone else ready?"  
  
Will sheathed his rapier and put a ball and powder into his pistol. Aragorn gripped Andúril tightly. Jack drew his cutlass and tucked his trusty pistol into his belt.  
  
"Let's go," he said.  
  
They stepped off the ship and into the muddy trail, and began walking down it.  
  
"Do these Aztecs trust you?" asked Will.  
  
"No, certainly not," said Jack. "They do not trust many strangers. They prefer to go on with their lives. Their motto is: eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow you may be gruesomely sacrificed."  
  
"One of those heart-removal things?" said Will.  
  
"More than likely," said Jack carelessly.  
  
Aragorn tripped on a tall root and fell onto his knees. Will went back to help him up, but Jack just kept walking.  
  
"I hate that man," snarled Aragorn.  
  
"You'll like him before the end," said Will. "On my first trip with him, I thought of him just as you do."  
  
"Come on," called Jack, "let's go!"  
  
After another five minutes of difficult walking, they walked out of the jungle into an enormous clearing. Around the area there were stone buildings. There were small ones, mere houses; large ones emblazoned with human skulls, extremely chilling; and in the middle there was a behemoth ziggurat. It was steep and the stairs were tall.  
  
"Right, we're going up there," said Jack, pointing to the temple at the top of the pyramid.  
  
Aragorn and Will stood staring open-mouthed at Jack, who took no notice of them and moved rather boredly towards the structure. Will and Aragorn followed shortly after. When the three of them reached the pyramid, their tedious journey to the top began.  
  
-------------  
  
Well, now I know what you are thinking. "We waited all that time for that short a chapter?!" I'm very sorry, but I've been busy lately. I will be more punctual from now on. 


	17. Tlilpotonqui, the High Priest

The three of them trudged exhaustingly up the steep, mountainous steps. Their stamina wore thin as they journeyed on up the pyramid and they had to stop to catch their breath twice. It took them half an hour to reach the top. Jack was the first to step onto the roof, followed by Aragorn and then Will. All of them were out of breath, and put their hands on their knees and stooped over.  
  
"We're...here," panted Jack.  
  
"You don't...say," snarled Aragorn.  
  
"Where to now?" puffed Will.  
  
"Let me see," said Jack, standing up. He looked into the temple. "Ah good, he's in."  
  
Aragorn turned around and looked there as well. There was a man sitting in front of a round stone blazing with flames. He was bald but for a thin black queue on the top of his head. He sat in a lotus position and was moving his hands as though to boost the fire upwards. He wore nothing but a brown loin cloth and a black feather headdress. He seemed to be chanting some sort of incantation.  
  
"Who is he?" asked Aragorn.  
  
"His name is Tliq – Tlilponp – Tlilpotonqui," said Jack, trying to pronounce the Aztec's name. "He is the High Priest of this village."  
  
"What do we need him for?" asked Will.  
  
"He is also the Head of the town," said Jack. "He has command over the army. A small army, but enough for a crew."  
  
"Do these people know how to run a ship?" said Aragorn.  
  
"Not in the least," answered Jack. "But they can defend us if we get into bother. Now keep schtum while I talk with him."  
  
Jack approached Tlilpotonqui. "Excuse me Tla – sir," he said.  
  
The High Priest's rigid body suddenly slouched and the fire died down spookily. His legs dislocated in a most unusual, disgusting and (probably) unnatural way, and then rejointed to their normal state when he was out of the lotus position. He stood without supporting himself with his hands and turned slowly to face Jack. He had a large, hooked nose much like Constable Obstinée's, and narrow, charcoal black slits of eyes. Aragorn noticed, horribly, that there was blood running down his temple. The man's palms were very scarred and red, from bloodletting from them. There were two fresh, glistening gashes there.  
  
"Jack Sparrow," he hissed. "It has been many moons since last our paths crossed. In the time since we met, the year of the jaguar has passed. That of the serpent has begun."  
  
"Frankly, why would you think I care?" asked Jack rhetorically.  
  
"You are ignorant," said Tlilpotonqui. "What is it you wish of me?"  
  
"I would like you and your men to aid me," said Jack. "I'm having a bit of an holiday and needed you to guard my ship."  
  
"Why is that my concern?" asked the Aztec.  
  
"If you help us," said Jack, "you will most probably be able to put those fine clubs and bows of yours to work. Heads will roll, blood will spill, it will be a fine tribute to your Gods."  
  
"Indeed it would," said Tlilpotonqui. "However, you will need to convince me more, Smoking Sparrow."  
  
"I do wish you wouldn't call me that," muttered Jack bitterly.  
  
"I can tickle your interest with this, perhaps," he said, and extracted from his pocket, on a silver chain, a golden coin. It was decorated around the edges with runes, and in the center was carved a grotesque skull.  
  
"Sparrow!" barked Aragorn. Dragging him everywhere trying to find it, and having it in his pocket all along. "You – "  
  
"Who are these?" demanded Tlilpotonqui. "Sacrifices, as payment, perhaps?"  
  
"No, no!" said Jack. Then out of the corner of his mouth, "Aragorn, shut up!" He began speaking to Tlilpotonqui again. "No, they are my friends. In case you do not know what that means, they are my allies."  
  
"I see," said Tlilpotonqui, and turned his attention rapidly back to the gold. His beady eyes stared at it greedily. "Our gold..." he whispered mysteriously and reached for it. Jack quickly snatched it back.  
  
"Ah, ah, ah," said Jack like a mother scolding a child, "mustn't touch. But, if you help me, you will see much more like this. I know where much gold is hidden."  
  
"Our gold?" asked Tlilpotonqui.  
  
"Only if you want to be cursed for eternity," said Jack.  
  
"Then how is it you come to have one and be not cursed?"  
  
"Found it," said Jack casually. "A certain old friend of mine, a monkey named Jack (what a coincidence, eh?), had it.  
  
"So, do we have a deal?"  
  
"We do, Smoking Sparrow," nodded Tlilpotonqui.  
  
"Excellent!" said Jack jovially, clapping his hands together. He took the gold in his hand and put it back in his pocket. Aragorn's anger ceased; it was not the same gold. "Collect your army then, and we'll be off."  
  
The rather small Aztec army was quite a sight for its size. They wore little of armour: a red shirt and black loin cloths, with gold bands around their arms and legs. They wore black sandals and headdresses like eagles' heads. There were three lines of ten warriors. The first line was comprised of warriors carrying spears and round, feathered shields. The second line carried the shields but instead of spears they carried flat, rectangular, wooden clubs edged with sharp obsidian blades. The third line had neither club, spear, nor shield, but carried longbows.  
  
"My sincere apologies for the miniscule size of the army," said Tlilpotonqui, leading Aragorn, Jack, and Will around, inspecting it. "They are our finest Eagles and Jaguars."  
  
"Also your only Eagles and Jaguars," said Jack.  
  
"What do you mean by Eagles and Jaguars?" asked Aragorn.  
  
"Eagles are the club and spearmen, and Jaguars are the archers," said Jack, like this was the most obvious thing in the world.  
  
"Actually, the Jaguars bear the clubs and spears," said Tlilpotonqui. "Eagles carry bows."  
  
Jack narrowed his eyes and moistened his lips in deep concentration. "Of course I knew that," he said suddenly, turning around. "I was merely stating that Eagles and Jaguars are the military ranks."  
  
"They will serve me unquestioningly in battle," said Tlilpotonqui. "I will tell them to do as you order."  
  
"Good," said Jack. "Well, I mean, it could be much better obviously, but it'll do."  
  
Several of the spear men brandished their weapons at Jack, who merely drew his pistol and pointed it at them, still looking at the High Priest. They lowered their spears immediately.  
  
"Let us be off then!" Jack said.  
  
-------------  
  
In case anyone was wondering, 'Schtum' means 'Quiet'.  
  
I'll update soon! 


	18. Obstinée's Departure

The next afternoon, the army of thirty, Jack, Will, Aragorn, Elizabeth, and Tlilpotonqui were tossed by seas once again. They had navigated out of the mysterious Aztec River and returned to the ocean. Now Jack was taking them to where the treasure Aragorn needed lay hidden.  
  
The seas were rough, though the day was clear. They were not in open water, for one thing. They had gotten through the open waters in the morning, and now they were sailing through a bay. The cliffs around them were solid rock. There was a narrow channel in between to large, round outcroppings that they were headed to.  
  
Tlilpotonqui, apparently, was beginning to regret agreeing to Jack's terms. He did not think that Jack would hold true to his promise and give them gold and blood.  
  
"Smoking sparrow," he said, "it seems you have deceived me."  
  
"How is that?" replied Jack.  
  
"You told me we would receive gold," the priest said. "And we would be able to kill. We have not."  
  
"Well we're not there yet are we?" said Jack. "You don't get your gold until we're there, and I'm not completely sure about whether you will get to spill blood."  
  
Meanwhile, down below, Will and Aragorn were practicing their sword skills (only lightly, so Will's thin rapier would not be broken by Aragorn's far stronger sword). Aragorn soon discovered that Will was a very talented swordsman. With his light and thin sword, he could make many movements that would be impossible for a sword of Andúril's bulk.  
  
The Aztecs practiced amongst themselves also. Their clubs were deadly; the obsidian blades on the sides were sharper than the sharpest sword to come out of Gondor. Aragorn felt sure they could have severed a steed's head in one blow (which they could, incidentally).  
  
They were prepared to fight.  
  
Aragorn lay in his uncomfortable bed that night, trying and failing to rest. Eldarion kept appearing in his head, looking more and more pale and ill. Arwen continued also to materialize, calling silently to Aragorn.  
  
"Arwen..." Aragorn muttered. back..."  
  
"Come to us, Aragorn," she said. "Eldarion is dying." And then she faded away into darkness.  
  
"No!" cried Aragorn and he sat up quickly in his bed.  
  
He got out of his bed and walked over to the window. He looked out it into the dark sea. In the pocket of his trousers he fingered something soft. He took hold of it and brought it out. In the darkness he had trouble making out what it was, but eventually he realized it was the Athelas he had picked the fateful day he had found the coin. It was still fresh.  
  
"If only it could heal an ailing heart," he said morosely.  
  
The next day, their weapon skills were put to use. At high noon, Aragorn, Jack, Will, and Elizabeth stood up on the captain's platform. Jack was piloting the boat.  
  
"See that cave up ahead?" Jack said to Aragorn, pointing at the very distant shoreline.  
  
"No," said Aragorn irritably.  
  
"Well there is a cave up there," said Jack. "That is where your treasure is."  
  
"You speak as though the gold is a prize I am plundering for," said Aragorn. "I need it to get back to Middle-earth. I do not want to see it again after that."  
  
"Alright, alright, keep your hat on," said Jack.  
  
"Jack!" said Elizabeth suddenly, peering through the telescope over the port side of the ship. "To the west!"  
  
Jack abandoned the wheel and walked over to the telescope. Elizabeth moved out of the way and Jack looked into it. Approaching their port side was a dark, evil ship. Its spar was bladed and it had black sails, and skeletons hanging from the sides. It was the Fell Strike.  
  
"Told you they'd follow us," said Jack.  
  
"And to the east!" said Will, looking through the starboard telescope. Jack approached it and looked through it. Approaching them from that side was another ship. It was official-looking and had white sails, and flew a British flag. A ship of the Fleet.  
  
"My God," said Jack. "They've allied!"  
  
"What do we do?" said Will.  
  
"Get your weapons ready!" commanded Jack. Tlilpotonqui, on the lower deck, issued the command to the Aztec warriors.  
  
"I hope you remember how to use your pistol," Jack said to Aragorn.  
  
Aragorn stuffed a ball and powder down the barrel of his handgun and tucked it into his belt. Jack and Will did the same, and Elizabeth prepared a musket from under the wheel. Down below, Tlilpotonqui and the Aztecs nocked flint-headed arrows in their bowstrings. Fifteen archers were positioned on either side of the ship, and fifteen spearmen and club-carriers behind them.  
  
Andúril was ready as ever, and seemed to lust to fight again. Both of Aragorn's hands wrapped around its mithril hilt. Jack's and Will's swords were readied, held one-handed. Elizabeth held her musket at the ready.  
  
"Lower port anchor!" ordered Jack. Tlilpotonqui ran up and dropped the starboard anchor.  
  
"Close enough," shrugged Jack.  
  
The ship lurched to a halt and made a sharp U-turn right. The two enemy ships move swiftly towards them.  
  
"You may not actually see your treasure, Aragorn," said Will.  
  
"Nor will you see the musket ball when it hits you," said Jack.  
  
"Thank you, Jack," said Aragorn.  
  
The Fell Strike sailed up and aligned with them on their port side. The British ship, called the Seafarer, came up on their starboard.  
  
"Fire!" roared a voice from the Seafarer, and musket smoke shot from the side of the ship, and gunshots went off. The hull of the Navis Fugacis was pummeled with lead balls. None of their crewmembers was hit, however.  
  
Tlilpotonqui ordered that the archers on either side of the ship release arrows. They did so all in unison, so the arrows flew evenly together. All of them hit a target. Soldiers and pirates fell off both ships and into the water.  
  
"Arrows!" came an oddly familiar voice from the Seafarer. "'Ow preemitive!"  
  
It was Constable Obstinée.  
  
"I'll show you primitive," snarled Aragorn and pointed his pistol. He could see Obstinée standing at the wheel, vain and uncaring for his soldiers that just died. Aragorn pulled the trigger on his gun. He missed the Constable, but managed to hit the wheel, and send the ship spinning left. Obstinée lost his balance and fell on his back.  
  
Suddenly, the crew of the Fell Strike fired pistols. Five Aztec archers fell dead, but many bullets hit the ship. One that stuck in the wheel stand Jack pulled from the wood. It was another of Machiavel's sinister inventions. There was a short, hooked spike on the front. Jack swore quietly.  
  
He, Will, and Elizabeth fired their flintlocks weapons at the Fell Strike together. Three screams were heard and two pirates fell dead.  
  
Then the Seafarer and the Fell Strike began moving closer to the Navis Fugacis. The Aztecs shot again. Many more crewmen fell dead. The Fell Strike turned towards the ship and moved right up to it. The pirate ship's spar began to raise and then came down swiftly upon the Navis Fugacis' deck. The blades chopped into the wood. Pirates began to swing on by ropes and grapnels. Many were shot out of the air by the skilled Aztec archers. The British had extended planks from the Seafarer to get onto the Navis Fugacis. They ran across, brandishing their sabres. The first line was shot.  
  
Then on either side the enemies poured on. The archers moved away and the spearmen pointed their spears forward. The enemy crews either charged or swung into their flint points. Then the battle began. When the next line of soldiers came on from both ships, the spearmen had not had time to skewer them. The club-bearers attacked, breaking the sabres and cutlasses, and devastated the unarmoured enemies. But there were many more of them than there were Aztecs.  
  
Númenorean blood suddenly surged through Aragorn's system. He dropped his pistol, drew Andúril in a flash and was off to the deck. Jack and Will took out their swords and followed him. Elizabeth stayed up at the wheel with her musket.  
  
Aragorn experienced battle one again. Andúril rang every time it struck down a foe – it was a beautiful sound. He suddenly noticed that while all his men were fighting, Obstinée was standing on his ship, watching.  
  
The warrior ran through the battle and onto the Seafarer. How cowardly, to watch his men die but stay away from battle himself. Aragorn tore up the steps of the Seafarer, killing the men guarding them as he went. Obstinée whipped around as Aragorn approached.  
  
"Heh heh heh," laughed Obstinée. "It ees Monsieur Turner, the leetle miscreant."  
  
"I am not Mister Turner," snarled Aragorn. "I am Aragorn Evenstar, son of Arathorn. I am a King!"  
  
"You are a scruffbag," said Obstinée.  
  
"It does not matter," said Aragorn. "We fight now, king versus coward."  
  
"Such a stupide man," said Obstinée calmly, smiling infuriatingly at Aragorn. Aragorn brandished his sword at Obstinée.  
  
Obstinée sighed and said, "Si tu insistes."  
  
He drew from his belt a long backsword. It had a silver basket hilt with red velvet on the inside.  
  
"We fight," spat Aragorn.  
  
Aragorn made the first offensive move. He charged forth and swung Andúril left at Obstinée, but the constable merely stepped out of the way, holding his sword out carelessly with his right hand.  
  
"Tsk, tsk," said Obstinée. "Such arrogance."  
  
Aragorn stabbed at him, but Obstinée parried the move downward. Then they began to actually fight, swords swinging and clanging, the offensive passing from one to the other several times.  
  
Eventually Obstinée calmly swung his sword sideways and cut into Aragorn's right arm. The king gasped and stumbled, but retained his balance.  
  
They fought some more. Surprisingly Obstinée's sword was still in good condition. Aragorn had expected it to break easily. But it was thicker than a rapier, and so tougher.  
  
Aragorn aimed most of his blows at the man's neck, but he was too smart for them. Then Obstinée slashed him diagonally across the chest. Aragorn fell to his knees, and his sword clattered to the ground. Obstinée was a far more skilled foe than Aragorn had ever fought.  
  
Obstinée put the end of his blade under Aragorn's chin, and raised it to between his eyes.  
  
"You are a fool to challenge me," he said arrogantly and smiled in a falsely sweet way.  
  
He pulled back his sword and then thrust it forward, straight at Aragorn's face. A split second before it would have hit, Aragorn's hand flew up and grabbed the blade, and gripped it tightly. It stopped where it was. Obstinée tried to wrench it free, but Aragorn would not let go. The blade was cutting his hand, and blood streamed out of it, but he did not release it. Gathering all the strength he could, he slowly but surely bent the sword's blade into a right angle.  
  
"Let go and face defeat!" spat Obstinée, but he was worried.  
  
As fast as lightning, Aragorn's free hand shot to his belt and the blade of his Elven knife flashed as it flew out. He thrust it forward and it plunged into Obstinée's stomach before the constable knew he had drawn it.  
  
Obstinée gagged and dropped his sword. He dropped to his knees, his mouth wide open. Blood began to seep out at the corners. Aragorn took up Andúril again in both hands, held it high above his head, and swung it down with seismic force. It sliced deep into Obstinée's left shoulder, and he crumpled under the force of the blow like a dandelion under a hoof. He lay on the ground, deader than Mordor.  
  
"Revenge truly is great," snarled Aragorn, wiped the blood from his blade with his cape and returned to the Navis Fugacis.  
  
------------  
  
Bwahahahaha! Now I know what you're thinking: "Obstinée got HIS come- uppance, what about Machiavel, though?" Don't worry, I've got death planned out in his future, as well.  
  
But until I write my next chapter, that will be yours to imagine. Enjoy doing so. 


	19. Return to MiddleEarth

Just thought I'd let you know that this is the last chapter in my story (not counting the epilogue). It's my climax. Please review, nobody ever does nowadays :(  
  
--------------  
  
Back on the ship, the battle was going reasonably well for both sides. Jack, Will and the Aztecs were outnumbered but had more powerful weapons. The British and Pirates had greater numbers, but their weapons broke under the blows of Aztec clubs.  
  
Will had suffered a small nick in his cheek from a British sabre but managed to avenge himself. Elizabeth was still up at the wheel, shooting with her musket. No one had noticed her thus far.  
  
Jack had no injuries, surprisingly. Neither did the one foe he had been fighting for most of the time: Donovan Machiavel.  
  
It had given Jack quite a shock to see that the pirate was still alive, even after the wound he had given him. He was more wily than Jack gave him credit for. He seemed to fight with just as much energy as before, but walked with a slight limp. This did not stop him from holding Jack off with great skill.  
  
"So Jack," said Donovan, taking ahold of the cross-guard on Jack's cutlass, "I see ye have lost none of your skill with a sword."  
  
"Actually I have," said Jack. "And if I've lost some skill and still winning, I'm either very good, or you're very bad."  
  
Donovan let go of Jack's sword and pushed him backwards. They began fighting again.  
  
Meanwhile, Will was locked in an epic battle with Harry, the man whose grandfather had been shot in the first battle.  
  
"I'm going to avenge my grandad's death," he snarled furiously. "Somehow I believe you are responsible for it."  
  
"I just shoot when I'm told to," said Will, shrugging.  
  
Harry was doing quite well with a cutlass, only slightly less well as Will was doing with his rapier. Possibly this was out of hatred and lust for revenge. Possibly, however, he was always this good.  
  
"I can see that I'm better than you," said Will.  
  
"That won't stop me from beating you," hissed Harry angrily.  
  
"I'll tell you what," Will said, "I'll switch hands. That will make it more equal."  
  
"Fine by me," grinned Harry.  
  
Unbeknownst to Harry, however, Will was fighting with his left hand, when he was right-handed. He tossed his rapier gracefully into his right hand, with which he was far more skilled.  
  
Now when they began fighting again, Harry was horribly overpowered. He was starting to panic slightly, and so whipped a throwing knife out of his belt and threw it at Will. It spiraled through the air, just missing his head but cutting a lock of his hair off.  
  
Harry took up a spear from the ground and threw it at Will with all his strength, but Will ducked and the spear stuck in the ship's deck.  
  
Soon, Harry swung his cutlass downwards and Will moved sideways, and swiftly put the point of his sword deep into Harry's side. The pirate, still bent over, holding his sword with both hands to the left, choked and turned his face on Will. His blue eyes burned furiously at Will and his sweaty brown hair stuck to his face. Will pulled his sword out. Harry gagged again and then fell over sideways.  
  
Jack and Donovan were still locked in their duel. Donovan was still a fairly popular captain amongst his men, apparently, because they kept attempting to help him. He kept telling them to stay off and let him finish it himself, but they would not listen. At one point, a weaselly man with black wiry hair leapt up in with a bayonet pointed straight at Jack. It was Donovan's lieutenant, Snaiyk.  
  
"Die, Sparrow!" he screeched.  
  
"Snaiyk, no!" roared Donovan angrily.  
  
Just then a hole was blasted in the lieutenant's chest. Smoke and blood both came from the hole. Snaiyk dropped his gun and fell to the ground. Elizabeth had shot him from the wheel. Donovan and Jack continued their duel.  
  
Jack was, however, a better swordsman than Donovan. At one point, Donovan stumbled backwards and landed on the railing of the ship.  
  
"Well done, Jack Sparrow," he hissed and grinned. He took a powerful swipe at Jack's legs with his cutlass. Jack jumped backward, giving Donovan time to grab one of the grapnels abandoned on the ground, throw it into the rigging of his ship, and swing over.  
  
There was none near Jack at the moment. He feared he may have lost his enemy. Suddenly, a spear came through the back of one of the pirates. Jack looked at it in surprise for a moment before pulling it through.  
  
"Sorry," he said, as the pirate fell to the ground, dead. "And thank you," he added. He charged the rail, put one foot atop it and then leapt over. The spear stuck in the wood of the Fell Strike, and like a pole-vaulter, Jack jumped onto the deck.  
  
He could not see Donovan; he had hidden somewhere. Jack walked around the deck searching for him behind barrels, behind the mast, but Donovan could not be found. He suddenly heard a pair of boots land behind him and he turned around drawing his cutlass. It was a good thing he had, for Donovan's sword had just swung down also, and was blocked by Jack's sword.  
  
"Found you," said Jack cockily.  
  
"Or was it I who found ye?" said Donovan. He winked at Jack and began fighting him again.  
  
Just then, Aragorn returned to the Navis Fugacis and joined the battle again. He did not stay there long, though. He noticed that Jack was on the pirate ship and two men were creeping up behind him.  
  
Donovan backed up the wooden stairs to the wheel and spun it. The ship stayed in one place but turned right. Aragorn took a run and jumped, only just making it onto the deck.  
  
"Now!" Donovan ordered the two men behind Jack.  
  
They drew their swords back but did not get to thrust them forward. Andúril's blade whistled as it swung through the air and severed both their heads cleanly.  
  
"What?" said Jack and Donovan together. Jack looked round, and Donovan took advantage of this by trying to get him with his back turned.  
  
"Behind you!" shouted Aragorn, and Jack span around just in time to duck and avoid death. Aragorn ran over to the other staircase leading to the wheel and came up on Donovan's right. The pirate drew a second sword with his free hand and blocked Aragorn's attack.  
  
He stood in one place, fighting both foes at once. He used his cutlass against Jack, but a backsword versus Aragorn. Surprisingly, he was holding them off with aplomb.  
  
Just then, he feinted a thrust to Aragorn's left shoulder, and while Aragorn attempted to parry it, he swiftly moved the sword down and put it into Aragorn's right thigh. He dropped Andúril and fell over in agony.  
  
Jack and Donovan moved down onto the main deck again. Their battle was becoming very intense. Wind began howling furiously, as well, and the boom swung hither and thither dangerously, so the two duelists had to duck frequently to avoid it.  
  
Jack leapt out of reach of the boom as it came over behind Donovan. The pirate noticed it at the last moment and threw himself on the ground and rolled sideways. He turned himself up onto his feet, still crouched down low, and turned his gaze to Jack once again.  
  
His pupil narrowed to a pinpoint, out of fear of what he saw. There was a gunshot a split second later. Jack was pointing a smoking pistol at Donovan.  
  
There was a smoking hole in his leather vest. Donovan tore the vest off, and blood began billowing out of the hole in his shirt. He reached behind him and touched his back. He brought his hand back up to his face. There was blood on the end of his fingers. Jack had shot him straight through.  
  
Jack lowered his pistol in victory, but did not smile.  
  
"Farewell," whispered Donovan, "old friend."  
  
The boom swung round again, straight into Donovan's handsome face. He roared in pain as it made contact. It carried him through the air and threw him overboard into the turbulent ocean. He was dead before he hit the water.  
  
On the Navis Fugacis, the pirates heard Donovan's scream. They all stopped fighting, holding their weapons still where they were. Then they all began to flee, leaping overboard into the ocean. There were no British soldiers left.  
  
Jack extracted from his pocket a grenade, but one adorned with many spikes. One of Donovan's ship grenades. He lit the fuse with a match from his vest and threw it into the podium to which the wheel was attached. A few seconds passed before it exploded, sending shards of the evil ship flying everywhere. The flames had managed to catch the dark sails and soon they were all ablaze.  
  
With a giant hole in their stern, the Fell Strike, the flagship of the great Donovan Machiavel, sank and was gone.  
  
"Come on," said Jack. "We don't have far to go."  
  
In the next hour, they had anchored the ship not far from the cave in which the treasure Aragorn needed rested.  
  
"Make ready a boat!" ordered Jack, and Will, Aragorn, and Tlilpotonqui readied a lifeboat. They and Jack all boarded it.  
  
"Goodbye Aragorn!" said Elizabeth from up at the wheel.  
  
"Farewell, Elizabeth!" answered Aragorn.  
  
"Done?" said Jack, and released the boat. It crashed down into the ocean, rocking back and forth, before steadying.  
  
Jack took two oars from the bottom of the boat and began rowing to the cave. The cave was dry, so there was no need to take the boat in. They reached the mouth and dragged the boat up onto the stone shore.  
  
"In here," said Jack. They walked up the smooth, stone path through the roughly cut walls of the cave, before they came to a dip. The passage then went down, with a stone staircase leading through it. They walked down the staircase and found themselves in a small cavern. Small, but positively brimming with gold. There were gold coins stashed in every little nook and cranny in the stone walls (not the ones Aragorn needed, however). There were treasure chests filled to the top with silver and gold and jewels. And at the end of the room there was a small outcropping of rock above which hung on a gold chain a coin. This one had runes around the outside and a hideous skull carved into the centre.  
  
"This is the one you need, Aragorn," said Jack, taking it carefully by the chain and walking over to him, with it dangling in front of his face.  
  
Aragorn reached for it, but Jack snatched it back.  
  
"May I have the treasure, Jack?" said Aragorn impatiently.  
  
"No," said Jack coolly.  
  
"Why is that?" asked Aragorn angrily.  
  
"You didn't say the magic word," said Jack innocently. Then seeing Aragorn's look of confusion, he said, "Please."  
  
"May I have it, please?" said Aragorn.  
  
"Certainly," said Jack, holding it out by the chain. Aragorn was about to take it, but held back. He turned around.  
  
"Farewell, Will Turner," he said. "You helped me out of a couple of tight spots."  
  
"Goodbye, Aragorn," said Will. "Or should I say...James?"  
  
Aragorn grinned. "Goodbye, Tlilpotonqui," he said. "Your men were most useful."  
  
Tlilpotonqui nodded absent-mindedly: he was staring at the treasure in Jack's hand.  
  
"And Jack," said Aragorn. "Farewell, and...thank you," he said, as though it was painful.  
  
"Don't mention it," said Jack.  
  
"Good working with you," Jack added, holding out his hand. Aragorn shook it.  
  
Aragorn held out his left hand, in a signal of farewell, and then reached out with his right hand and grasped the gold.  
  
His body began to tingle like it had before. Everything was tinted with a yellowish hue in his vision, like he was looking through a topaz. His hand touching the skull began to burn, as though the coin was red hot. His vision clouded over with gold until he could see nothing but it.  
  
Then it all stopped. His vision came back to him, his hands felt normal, and all his body did so also.  
  
He looked around him. He was in the same glade he had found the Athelas for Eldarion in. Up the slope beside him he could see the White City of Minas Tirith, gleaming in the sun.  
  
He was back.  
  
Aragorn felt the Athelas in his pocket. It was still good. He charged up the hill into his great city.  
  
As he passed through the gates, those around him gasped and stared in amazement: King Elessar had returned!  
  
"There goes a great man," said Will as Jack lowered the gold coin.  
  
"True, true," said Jack. "A bit rude to me, though, weren't he?"  
  
"Don't worry," said Will. "I was, also."  
  
"No worries," shrugged Jack.  
  
"Here, why wasn't that coin at the Isla de Muerta?" asked Will suddenly.  
  
"Beats me," said Jack. "Someone didn't like it and hid it, I suppose."  
  
They stood silent for a moment.  
  
"Smoking Sparrow," said Tlilpotonqui suddenly. "I believe it is time for you to live up to your end of the bargain."  
  
"Eh?" said Jack.  
  
"You promised us gold," said the priest.  
  
"Oh yes," said Jack. "Here, take this," he said, and tossed him the skull- emblazoned coin.  
  
THE END  
  
Hooray! It's finished! Does victory dance. Many thanks go out to all my reviewers and all my supporters! I think I'm going to cry...  
  
The only reviewer I don't wish to thank is that stupid cow Acacia Jules. She has the nerve to tell me my characters are out of character then go write stories like hers? Her head must be emptier than a eunuch's underpants.  
  
On a more positive note (though it gave me a very positive feeling to write that), I appreciate everyone else's reviews and advice. I'll owe you one.  
  
Until I write a new story, goodbye. But no, it's not goodbye, just...bonjour. 


End file.
